Monday, January 12, 2009

Coming Home

That Saturday we arrived before eight so as to be there to give Bean his morning dose Lantus.  The pharmacist said we could always practice with saline on him if it was too early, but why give him more pokes then absolutely necessary, we figured.  

I gave him his shot.  Not my favorite thing to do, but I was glad to have the nurse there to supervise at least once.  Since confidence in drawing up insulin and giving shots was a necessary prerequisite to Bean coming home, we were prepared to do it.  

The discharge process was quite long and Jay had to leave to speak at a conference part way through.  When he got back, the pharmacist showed us how to use glucogen.  Eeep.  We were really hoping to never need that... the problems with hypoglycemia seemed terribly frightening.  She gave us some more information on Lantus and Humalog (the quick acting insulin to be used to correct highs).  Bean's Humalog had to be specially diluted twenty times by the pharmacy so we could actually draw it up in a syringe.  Still he didn't need very much, so that is where the 1/2 unit markings on the syringe came in handy.  

In addition to the diabetes education, we went through the standard NICU discharge education.  This included an infant CPR video with a doll to practice on.  It was actually pretty well done, and we got to keep the doll and video.  The "purple crying" video was pretty disturbing though.  I just can't wrap my head around someone hurting a baby due to crying, and we had two very colicy babies prior to Bean.  Yikes.  The rest of the education was given Reader's Digest style by the nurse.  This is our third baby after all- we've picked up on a few things by this point.  :)

Then there was some confusion with the pharmacy so we had to wait for them to mix up Bean's insulin to take home.  This took several hours.  Jay and I just rocked Bean, took some pictures, and waited.



Around six that evening we finally got the green light to head out.  Bean's nurse walked us to the car with all of his supplies.  Hooray!  We drove home just ecstatic to have him with us.  The weight of responsibility hit shortly after we arrived home- just in time to check his glucose and administer his evening dose of Lantus.  We were now in charge of monitoring his blood glucose at least every three hours around the clock.  On top of that we were to give him sodium four times a day mixed with fresh milk to get it down.  

Daunting?  You bet.

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