Lessons from the PICU

If you've ever held vigil, by the side of a loved one in the ICU, you already learned these lessons. You might even have more to share. 

So far, here are my Lessons from the PICU . . . 

1. Everyone else works in 2 or 4 or 6 or 12 hour blocks of time. When you sit bedside 24/7 you are waiting, hoping, wishing for information every time a medical professional walks in the room. You want to ask: "How'd those labs look?" "What's that alert sound?" "any update on the xray?" "how'd the EKG look?" And you want to ask these questions every time someone walks by the door, peeks their head in, or just comes in to check vitals. 

So . . . Patience. 

2. We are looking for trends. We need our boy to be a trend setter! Once a trend is established by the docs a real move toward recovery is made. Baby steps. One step forward, another step laterally, there might even be a step "backward" sometimes. 

3. A day in the PICU that's not a BAD day is a GOOD day. So, we've been fortunate. One Thursday, after about 12-14 hours of "we don't know what is making him so sick" we got a diagnosis. Just knowing what we were dealing with was a huge win. On Friday he started receiving breastmilk by feeding tube. He's been taking up to max feeds. On Saturday we started getting rid of a lot of the junk that's in his chest. He's getting a lot of suction, which means all that gunk is coming up. Sometimes something GOOD might look BAD . . .

4. The nights are hard. I'm exhausted. Stuff happens, but I'm alone in the room with Finn (Kyle's down the hall in the sleeping room). I've waited all day for that "news" (see #1). The nights are hard.

5. Our support team is amazing. We've got a support team near and far. People have done amazing things to take care of us. Everett has been in the very best care from the minute we put out the calls. People have delivered food, processed military base access passes, cleaned our home, picked up our dogs and cared for them, baked me lactation cookies, driven hours to spend a few minutes talking and laughing with us. People are making immediate plans to be here for support, other people make the genuine offer to be here for support later as this battle will take some time.

6. Love wins.