Garrett Needs Rehab: Day 22

Garrett is having a hard time with withdraws from his narcotic drugs. He is now off of all his ‘drips’ or ones that were being continuously administered.  He did have to get a dose of morphine this morning to help him calm down as he was beside himself. As a wise nurse from Flora, IL, told me:  it is a blessing that he will not remember a lot of his struggles during this time.  I agree to that.  Drug withdraws are difficult for adults to go through, hence so many having severe additions.  So I can only imagine a 3 week old having to go through them.  I knew we would have to face this, I am just glad he will not remember it when he gets older.

                He is sleeping peacefully at the moment.  That is ALWAYS a good thing.  Modern medicine amazes me.  The change in handling babies with CDH has changed drastically over the past 20 years.  One of our NICU nurses has been here 25 years.  She told me when she first started in the NICU, when a CDH baby was born they took the baby straight from delivery to the operating room to have its repair surgery.  The survival rate during that time period was, obviously, very low.  Now they handle things so much differently as you have seen with Garrett.  He did not have his repair surgery until he was 6 days old.  Interesting how things change over time.  I feel if I had had Garrett 25years ago his outlook would have been even bleaker.

                This afternoon my 3-year-old Grant will head out with my parents to the Quad Cities for my brother’s wedding.  Unfortunately my husband and I are not going.  Garrett is not having the best of times right now and I feel that my place is here with him (Solid 4 to 5 hour drive from STL to Quad Cities).  It is a sad thing for me to miss my only brother’s wedding.  No words can express how sorry I am to miss one of the most special days in his life.  I feel once Ben and Ashley have their first child and feel the love for that baby; they will never question this tough decision I had to make.  I know the wedding will be marvelous and I wish them both much happiness in the years to come!  Bring on the nieces and nephews as far as I am concerned!!!!!!!!!!

Update from this afternoon:

So there were a few changes today since my morning post.  First of all, his withdraw symptoms are not so bad because they decided during rounds to keep him on doses of morphine.  We will worry about morphine withdraws when he is NOT still looked up to so much and no longer has a PICC line or IV.  The morphine makes Garrett a much happier camper.

            Secondly I wanted to report he is steadily gaining weight as they have been upping his tube feedings and going down on his intravenous nutrition.  He currently weighs 8lbs 1oz (he was 7lbs 5ozs at birth).  He is moving in the right direction with his weight and growth; which is eventually what is going to get him HOME.  Eventually we will attempt feeding by mouth.  That may not happen until he is off of CPAP.

            So things are fairly smooth today at the NICU.  An uneventful day is my favorite kind of day.