What is That Beeping?

It is 2:35 am. Greetings from the night shift. Sorry for the long post but I couldn't stop writing. Sophie is fine but keeping dad on his toes (literally and figuratively).

As Elaine and Jason walked out, I pulled out the laptop and settled in for a relaxing movie as Sophie slept away...however, the various monitors and Sophie's roommate had other ideas. I haven't sat down since they left.

First, Sophie decided to give Dr. Asano plenty to read when he gets here in the morning. She woke up and had about 20 seizures. She was not very happy when she opened her eyes to a strange nurse rather than her favorite person in the World (her mama). However, she had to settle for the dad as she continued to say mamamamamamamamamamamamamamama. It was only 5 minutes after Elaine had left but I knew she wouldn't get any sleep if I called her every time something happened. Sorry Elaine but you and baby need rest.

Second, they gave Sophie some morphine and she fell back asleep. I immediately told them to get her seizure meds (Depakote and Dylantyn) just like Elaine gave me instructions to do. I believe it was one of the 20 instructions...the yellow line means this and should be between this and this, the green line, the blue line, the red line, the purple numbers, the ICP range, don't forget to write down the seizure activity, only let the morphine go in this tube (that one came in handy as the nurse seemed confused), etc. etc. etc.

Third, the yellow line (which I recalled was breaths per minute and should be approximately 20) went down and down and down until it was zero and the machine was beeping repeatedly. She was breathing (don't worry even though I sure did) but the morphine made her breaths shallow. This yellow line continued to crash and go off every 5 minutes while I made sure she was breathing and became obsessive of counting the breaths per minute myself.

Okay, time to relax until the kid that Sophie is sharing a room with had everything beeping. He proceeded to have 3 different IVs put in and come out within the next 2 hours. Since his parents are nowhere to be found, I became the person silencing the beeps on his machine too for the nurse (and assuring him that he would get ice cream soon...that may be the only word he knows). Even though she repeatedly thanked me, I assured her it was in my best interest to shut it up (the machine, not the kid) as well.

Back to Sophie. Fourth, around 11:30, I asked Dianne (her nurse) whether her seizure meds were here yet. She said they would only come if she had 2-3 seizures. Did I imagine those 20 seizures, which she was standing right next to me during? Evidently it wasn't as obvious to her even though I told her and asked her to get her meds...end of the shift I guess.

Around 11:45, Laura took over. Laura seems to be getting everything much more organized around the bed but that woke Sophie up. Sophie had one of the longer clusters I have seen (40 or more). More data for Dr. Asano!!! But once again mamamama was the word of choice (although she did throw in a "door", which is her favorite word when wanting to leave a room...I don't blame her) during the episode as I continued to ask WHERE WAS HER MEDS? At the end of the cluster, Sophie decided to really test my stomach by throwing up a little towards me (green which I was assured is normal).

Elaine can confirm that I don't have the strongest stomach for blood, needles, and puke so this is the fainting trifecta. But I made it through and so did Sophie. She is so brave and strong.

Back to hopelessly trying to 'interpret' the 120 different leads on Sophie's brain. Which one spiked first? No idea...will wait for Dr. Asano to fill us in tomorrow.