Tom made arrangements to come down and stay with Ryan overnight and then take him to school on Thursday morning. This proved to be invaluable because it allowed Mike and I both to accompany Reagan to the hospital. I was told that only one of us could stay with her, so I packed a bag of her things and my things, and off we went. Once we got there, our tech informed us that since she was in a crib and there were two twin beds in the room, we could have both stayed if we wanted to. We weren't prepared for that, so we decided to stick to our plan and I would stay overnight while Mike went back home to be with Ryan.
The sleep study took place at Mt. Washington Pediatric Hospital, which is on the Towson side of Baltimore. We checked in and went upstairs. The room had two twin beds and a crib, but the bathroom was out in the hall... hello college dorms! During the sleep study, everything is recorded on video, so I quickly realized that privacy within the room was pretty much non-existent except for one small corner where you could hide if you really needed to (perhaps if you wanted to pump?). There are vending machines, but the choices were far from gourmet, so my brand new 2 lb. bag of almonds came in handy!
We got to the hospital precisely at 8:30 PM. The most important detail of preparing for a sleep study is that you LIE STILL. Since you can't tell a two month old baby to lie still, you can imagine the fun we had getting Reagan all hooked up.
Right after we arrived
Thirty minutes after that......
Two hours later. Reagan was ready to rip those wires out!
Finally, everything was in place.
Reagan cried pretty much the entire time she was being hooked up, so by this point, she was exhausted and fell asleep. Every time she woke up, she realized she was confined, and that did not go over well. It made her overnight feedings very difficult! Reagan is comforted largely by two things: the sound of the shower (and the ensuing steam which helps her congestion) and being walked. I could do neither of these things as I had no access to a shower or steam, and I was not able to walk her back and forth. Her range of motion was literally about two feet of space.
We both slept for a four hour stretch, and we had to be out the next morning by 6 AM.
We came home, and Reagan and I went to bed. Tom and Mike got Ryan up and ready for school. They took him to school together, and then Tom headed home and Mike headed to work.
The results take 7-10 days to process. I'm at the point now where the wait for test results is nerve wracking!! What other new things will we uncover? How might her care become more complex?
Getting ready to go home the next morning. The gauze and the transmitter gel gave her a little bit of a bumpy rash, which went away with some A&D after a day or so.
No comments:
Post a Comment