Mya's doctor called me today while I was at the bank trying to open an account for Mya so I can start putting money in it for her. He wanted to tell me that he got Mya's heart monitor report back from the Sleep and Disorder Specialist and it turned out to be negative! Oh how thrilled I was to hear that in my mind. As soon he said I can returned the monitor back to John Hopkins, I had the biggest smile on my face that the bankers was wondering why I was smiling and they decided to do nothing but smile back at me.
I had to called Mike right away after I spoke with the doctor so Mike can call the John Hopkins to let them know that we are returning it back NOW and we just want it gone and out of our sight!
The reasons why she had to use the heart monitor is because Mya was so tiny when she came into the big and crazy world and her body was not ready for the real stuff since she was supposed to stayed in my womb for another 7 weeks. Mya had to learned how to swallow, sucking, and breathing at the same time. If she forgets, which happened a lot while in NICU, she goes into "brady code", meaning she is forgetting to breathe while she was sucking and swallowing and and when that happens, her heart rate goes down. When I said she forgets often, that also means she falls asleep during her feeding. When her heart rate goes down, her respiratory also goes down and when that happens, the nurses will either tap on the back like trying to burp the baby or rub their hands hard so they can wake up from it. Doctors said it is very common for the premature babies have this problem.
While Mya was on the heart monitor, she has 2 different electrodes, (its a sticky patches that attach on your skin) one for her heart and the other one is for her breathing. Mya has to wear the monitor for 24 hours everyday. The only time we can take it off is when we are giving her a bath. The doctor wanted us to watch her heart if it goes off. Since she been on the heart monitor, the heart part never went off at all. Only the respiratory part did. On the monitor, there are 2 different pictures on it and it will let us know which one is going off.
Ever since Mya came home from the NICU, the heart monitor drove us crazy and up on the wall! It is so sensitive and the alarm is so loud and I was afraid the whole neighbors would hear it! It is so sensitive and when it does goes off, I panic and quickly go over and look at Mya to make sure she is breathing and doesn't look blue on her cute little precious face and all I see Mya looking at me and smiling darn cute or giving me the look saying "what happened?" There has been many nights when the alarm goes off every 15 minutes for 2-4 hours straight. Luckily, I was not working at that time otherwise I don't know how I will be drawing my patient's blood with my eyes closed.
I can't tell you how many times I had to pulled over on the side of the road/highway when I was driving by myself with Mya to check on her to make sure she was breathing when the alarm goes off. I had about 10 different people stop on the side of the road to see if I needed any help. It is nice of them to stop and ask if I need any help but I doesn't make any sense because I didn't have my hood up or trying to change my tire. All I did opened the backseat door where Mya was.
Going to public like in stores and restaurants, it is so embarrassing because everyone turned around and look at me wondering why I am beeping. And I hate telling them how sorry I was for the loud awful noise. I don't like to tell them what happened or why the alarm is going off or why Mya is on the heart monitor but when the alarm finally stop, I tell them it's okay now, they are still looking at me and waiting for me to explain something.
Another part why I am so glad getting rid of it is because Mya was having allergic reaction to the electrodes and it turned into nasty blisters. When she develops the blisters in that spot, nurse told me to change the electrodes to a different area and then it happens again on the new area. Then, one time I did have any where to put the electrodes on her because the blisters were so bad and it starting to break out. There has been a few times Mya's shirt so wet because the pus was coming out from the blisters. This didn't start to happened until a month ago. The nurse told us to call John Hopkins to see if they had a different kind of electrodes and they didn't. That is when I decided to not to use it anymore for the last 2 weeks from today. And I know I am bad because I was not supposed to take the monitor off.
So farewell to the heart monitor!
(In the picture above, you can see the cords on the table near her foot that leads to her monitor)
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