*update on recovery*

Since we got home last Wednesday Delilah has been just plain miserable. All she had wanted to do is sit on my lap and cuddle, which is not my child so I'm wondering who they traded her with before we left the hospital. She even snuggled with me and watched a movie, yes a whole entire 90 min movie!! But maybe it wasn't that odd since it starred Matthew McConaughey and I know I will sit still for any movie he is in, especially if he takes his shirt off.....ooooooo.....ok back to the update.

Everyday that passed seemed worse than the day before and usually you have few bad days following surgery but then you start to get feeling better. That was not what was happening in our home. Delilah has slept through the night since she was 6wks old and i mean like 12-14 hrs a night (gotta brag a little) and she started waking up every 3-4 hrs because her pain was so uncontrolled. She was on Lortab so I couldn't give her additional Tylenol and she couldn't have Motrin due to the risk of bleeding so I just felt stuck. I was good at giving her the dose prescribed on time but it only seemed to help for maybe an hour and then she was miserable again.

Saturday came, and by this time I really thought she would be getting back to her old self, and things were still going downhill and now to top it off she wasn't pooping. All you moms that have had kids who don't poop for a few days know how frustrating this can be because once they do go its like a bomb went off and you need to take them outside and rinse them off with the hose! Sunday came and went with no improvement either so on Monday morning I called the ENT nurse. She told me that the pooping would return to normal when she felt better, which didn't comfort me much since that meant she was still a ticking time bomb, but she then asked how her pain was being managed. I told her how miserable Delilah has been and how that is not like her one bit. She asked the dosage of the Lortab I was giving and I told her it was 0.5ml every 4 hrs. She replied with "did you mean 1/2 a tsp every 4 hrs?" so again I told her "no I mean 0.5ml" so she asked me to hold while she got her chart. I waited patiently, well as patiently as i could with a screaming 11 month old clinging to me like a monkey, when she finally returned to the phone. "Ummm...i don't know what happened but it looks like there was a mistake made with the dose...for her weight she should be getting 3.8ml or at the very least 2ml every 4 hrs." I asked her if she had the right patients chart and she did. I couldn't believe that she had been getting a dose of pain meds for that of a 5lb newborn, not a 21lb pre-toddler! No wonder why she hasn't been getting better, she hasn't even been getting enough Tylenol that would be needed for her weight. I was speechless. The only thing I could udder was "ok so you are saying she needs a LOT more than she is getting? And if that is the case there is no way this small bottle will last us even 3 more days." She informed me that there was a standing order that she could refill it when we needed it, which I also had not been informed of at the hospital.

I got off the phone and gave her the corrected dose and after a few min she smiled, yes she smiled for the first time in days!!! She wanted to get off my lap and play and drink her formula and take a good long nap. This got me thinking, why would they even allow this resident, Dr ERROR, to practice medicine yet because it was obvious to me that he needed a lot more practice if he cant even calculate the proper dose of meds for a child or sign a prescription.

Last night Delilah went to bed like normal and slept, even thru me coming in and giving her more meds when she was due. She only woke up twice and is now happily playing with her toys and being her little independent self again. It really upsets me that this all could have been avoided and she could have been feeling this good last week if the "dr" did his job. After thinking about it I am going to call PCMC again and file a complaint about Dr ERROR. He needs to know he is making mistake after mistake so hopefully he can learn to take an extra minute to verify he is prescribing the correct medication and dosage. I would hate for this to continue to happen to children. And to think I never would have even known if I didn't call the nurse because Delilah wasn't pooping! My fingers are crossed that things will just get better from here :)