D Day minus 2.

My mom commented to me today that she can't believe all the things I write about on a daily basis. It seems to be something new everyday. Truth is stranger than fiction, folks. I would never be able to make this stuff up.

A message was left for me yesterday to call the home health supplies place and find out when they would be at the hospital this morning. So I called and was told sometime between 9 and 11. Then just before I was about to leave for the hospital, a respiratory therapist from that company called and said he had been told Quinn would be discharged today, and found out that wasn't true, and we needed to have a different time to set up the oxygen tank when he actually did go home, and did I know when that would be? I told him Friday. He wanted to know when on Friday. I tried not to laugh when I said "Surely you've dealt with hospitals before?" He got the point and said we'd talk about it Friday morning.

I went to the hospital to met the respiratory therapist. He said again that he thought the discharge was happening today, and had rushed over, in a panic to be on time, with two monitors and a big oxygen tank. We're not entirely sure who originated that notion, nor who told them that two monitors were needed. He had brought both an apnea monitor and a pulse oxymeter, which we didn't need. Just another miscommunication. None of this suprised me of course. No matter. I got the rundown of how to use the apnea monitor, and how to put it on Quinn, and then he left, and that was it. It would have been very bulky to have both the home monitor and the hospital monitor on at the same time, so currently the home monitor is sitting next to Quinn's bed, totally useless. So that was a little bit of panic that was totally unnecessary. The good news is that learning how to put the monitor on Quinn woke him up so thoroughly that he nursed very well immediately afterward.

The neonatologist gave me the prescriptions for all Quinn's meds. And they are not a few. Most of them are dietary supplements, and then a diuretic, which is for his lung issues. She then told me she really wanted me to think about staying overnight at the hospital to get used to taking care of Quinn and the monitor and so on, because "I think it's more work than you realize and I want to make sure you're ready for it." I agreed to think about it, but I already knew I didn't like the idea. And anyway, what made her think I haven't been preparing for 3 months to have a very high needs child? Good grief. It really sounds like a hazing ritual, like I have to pass her test in order to be granted my child. I can just see people streaming through the room at all hours of the night "just to check on Quinn" which to me defeats the purpose of taking care of him myself. But because he would still be an admitted patient, they would be able to do what their policy directs them to do to him. Nevermind the fact that to me, the point would be to take care of him, and if I need to, I can ask for help, and otherwise, leave me alone. I'll have to figure out how to handle that one tomorrow.

Our afternoon nursing went well also. I had thought I'd be pushing my luck to try again and hope for success, but I got it anyway. Then I got into a long conversation with the nurse, someone I'd never met, about vaccines. It was very positive in fact, unlike so many other conversations I'd had on the topic. She said she just recently did a project for her master's about why some parents are choosing to forgo or select only some vaccines, and how the answers had been varied, and not what the media would have us believe, which is that we're mostly afraid of autism. We talked a bit about the recent Time article, which I've referred to multiple times as a remarkable work of fiction. We talked about exemptions for school, the chicken pox vaccine doing more harm than good, the yearly pertussis outbreaks despite high vaccination levels, the HPV vaccine pulling Merck out of financial distress, and lots of other good stuff. I find kindreds in the oddest places. It's good to know they are still out there.