We had a difficult night at St George’s last night. Massimo’s secretions were copious and therefore made it harder for him to breathe, I found that I was doing nothing more than constant suctioning and I managed a total of about 4 hours sleep. Luckily I knew that Verna was due to come tonight so I didn’t worry about it too much! At 7.45 am I took him off the oxygen and he saturated well(ish) at around 94-95% but this isn’t really Massimo’s normal levels, so I put him back on the oxygen. At 9.05 am I tried again and he saturated well at 96-97%.
I reported this during doctor’s rounds and they said that as long as Massimo stayed off the oxygen and saturated well for the rest of the morning and that his blood gases (checks above all the level of carbon dioxide in the blood) were good then we could go home this afternoon.
Yesterday I came home to a message from Katy to say that she has a friend who has recently had a baby and who will be bringing him home but with the aid of a suction machine and would I be kind enough to speak to her and reassure her that this is feasible. Of course I said I would be more than happy to help and this morning Katy told me that the baby was in St Georges. I searched high and low for them and found Mum and baby in the NeoNatal Unit, the last place I would have looked as the baby was not premature! Anyway Ann and I had a good chat about things and she seemed to be happy to meet me and draw comfort from the fact that life does go on and you do learn to deal with the machines. From there I rushed to meet Mum’s doctors to chat about what the next plan for her is to be – she is coming home on oxygen on Friday hopefully – then we got Mum in a wheelchair with a portable oxygen cylinder, Vittorio (my brother) and his girlfriend arrived with Massimo’s buggy and various bits and pieces so we went to collect Massimo from the ward, and finally we all went to the hospital restaurant for lunch. Unfortunately by this stage it was half past one and Massimo and I had an appointment at 1.45 pm with Mr Daya! Well the others enjoyed lunch and Massimo and I joined them for coffee.
The outing did Mum the power of good and although she did look rather tired when she went back to her room at 4 pm, I’m sure she wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Massimo was discharged at 4 pm and we came home.
Verna is here tonight and I shall waste no more of my precious sleep time. I’m sure I will have more to say tomorrow!
Oh yes, Massimo now weighs a massive 7.3 kgs (16 lbs 1 oz) and chemo which should have happened yesterday has been postponed to Thursday!