Tuesday, July 15th - My First Vomit

I returned after the evening shift change to find that Kinley still has not pooed. Mary, Kinley's night nurse, said that she was gagging a little bit during the shift change so she sat her up for a little bit and the gagging past. It did not pass for long though because around 8:30 pm Kinley starting gagging again. Mary sat Kinley up to try and help it pass, but it was too late, Kinley threw up all over her bed. Mary assured me that it looked like a lot more than it really was. She was guessing that it was only 10 ccs of vomit and she was pretty sure that it was caused by withdrawals and not from being overfed. I felt so bad for Kinley, but she is just so gosh darn cute. I hated the fact that she was not feeling well, but the look on her face was pure bewilderment on what had just happened. It took a little time to process and once she realized that it was not fun she started crying. I am sure that she felt much better after emptying her stomach so it did not take long to calm her down, but the calm could only last a short while. Kinley had thrown up her NG tube and it needed to be replaced. Needless to say, Kinley is not a huge fan of having tubes shoved up her nose, but after a few minutes of sneezing (and cleaning up by Mary) everything was back to normal.

During her little vomiting episode Kinley also had her diaper changed (twice because she immedialtely peed in her new diaper), was weighed and had her outfit changed.

I thought that Kinley would fall right to sleep after her "exciting" evening, but she was wide awake. So I decided to take advantage of her being awake and gave her a little more tummy time with daddy. We have not had a professionals opinion, but I feel that Kinley is doing really well with moving her head on her own. While I was holding Kinley, Mary (Kinley's night nurse) called Mary (the nurse practitioner) to inform her of Kinley's night so far. Together they decided that the change in Kinley's methadone and ativan frequency (every 6 hours to every 8 hours) and how it was given (through the NG rather than IV) was too much for her and she is having withdrawals. They will move the frequency of her doses back to every 6 hours, but keep giving them through her NG tube.