Nurse Speak!

Maddie's eight million breathing treatments seem to be working. When her Pediatrician listened to her lungs via stethoscope this morning, she said, "I hear good air moving around in there." Her nurse listened an hour later and exclaimed, "her air exchange sounds good!" Um, okay! I like the use of the word "good," even if I have no idea what air exchange means.

Pediatric Nurses always speak with exclamation points, though, so sometimes you have to wade through the excitement to get to the crux of the message. They are often speaking to me but addressing the baby so the message often comes out like baby talk. Like yesterday, her nurse said to me, "Did Maddie tell on me?!" I looked at her a bit askew because, you know, Maddie doesn't talk. The nurse then went on, "well, widdle Mad-a-win had to get in the water and she didn't like it one bit, no she didn't! But now she's all dry and happy and such a smiley widdle baaaay-beeee!" Translation - Maddie had a bath. Or when another nurse said, "Maddie made faces when she got her vitamin but I mixed it up and now it's nummers!!" Meaning, she mixed her vitamin supplement in milk. It's so cute how they engage Maddie, even if I sometimes am slooow to pick up what they mean. They give her such great care

When her Pediatrician left this morning, she said, "well, it looks like I'll be seeing you on Monday." So it doesn't look like Maddie will be sprung from the joint anytime soon. She's still on oxygen and she hasn't tolerated the settings being lowered below 1/2 liter a minute. The respiratory therapists keep asking us if she's on oxygen at home. She isn't, and we're hoping that we don't have to bring her home on it. Her Pediatrician is confident she'll come home off oxygen, so I have my fingers crossed. Having an oxygen canister at home would make me nervous - I'm certain I'd find a way to make it explode!!