Lockdown

Just the other day I was talking to my buddy, Charlie, about how badly I could use a day off. An entire day of nothing. See when Charlie and I were younger we used to designate certain days for Lockdown. On one of these days there were no plans; no visitors; comfy clothes all day; a couch and a TV. If Lockdown can fall on one of those weekends I referenced in my last post, all the better. But if not, then DVDs and Seinfeld reruns can certainly pass the time. [Who am I kidding, when we did this they were VHS and Seinfeld was only on Must See Thursdays] It's much harder to pull this off as I get older and my level of responsibility increases. But it's certainly possible to have a modified version of Lockdown.

I was explaining this to some co-workers shortly after that discussion and they all seemed to think it was impossible to do this. Either there were too many things that absolutely have to get done over the weekend, or there are individuals who are incapable of staying inside and not doing anything for an entire day. I tried to describe how they were looking at it from the wrong point-of-view. You see Lockdown is something. Waking up and moving to the couch to watch TV is the plan. These are your priorities for the day. I guess you either get it or you don't. Regardless, I am a huge fan. So Erin and I decided that yesterday (Saturday) would be one of those days. We had no plans so we decided to make Modified Lockdown the order of the day. Going to sleep Friday night, I was really looking forward to it.

Can you guess how this story ends?

At 7 am yesterday morning we were in the car; Gavin still half asleep and in his pajamas, Molly unhappy because she is hungry. When Erin went to feed Molly at 6 am, her tube was clogged. This has happened before, usually through some effort the clog subsides and all is well. In the rare case that we're unable to unclog the tube, we simply replace the tube with a new one. In this particular instance the clog would not subside, and there were no extra tubes. Since you can't just buy these at Walgreens, we called the answering service for our pediatrician. When the doctor called back she told us to go to the nearest hospital and go to the ER. She said she'd be shocked if the hospital didn't have a replacemnet tube. We should have realized at that point what we were in for.

We arrived at the University Medical Center at Princeton and the ER was virtually empty. The good news was there was no wait to be brought back to a bed. The bad news was once we got to the bed all we did was wait. Now keep in mind we love UMCP. We chose to deliver Molly there even though everyone was encouraging us to go to a hospital that specialized in delivering sick babies. We couldn't have been happier with our experience there for either of our children. To say the least, they didn't have the tube we needed.

The first doctor that came in to see us was on his way home. He checked her out; looked for some writing on the tube; went home. The doctor that replaced him looked a little more awake. He couldn't believe it when we told him all he needed to do was get us a tube and we would put it in.

"Hey Bill, they don't need anyone from neonatal, they can put the tube in themselves."

Medical professionals were astounded.

We thought we'd end up teaching a class.

Ultimately they got a nurse from neonatal down and she put the tube in - the wrong tube. We ended up having to stay in the ER because the only way we could feed Molly was with their apparatus (the valve of their tube was too narrow for the dispensing cone on Molly's feeding bag; so it wasn't actually the wrong tube, it just wasn't perfect).

The whole time we're there I am on the phone with the home care company to see if we can get a new tube delivered, or if they can direct me to a place where I can buy one. None of the above.
So we leave Princeton planning to drive to Robert Wood in New Brunswick. We figure if RWJ can't help, St. Peter's is right around the corner. And if that doesn't work then we'll take a leisurely drive down to CHoP. Secretly I was hoping to visit all the hospitals Molly has been to in one day - a Lockdown day no less!

Instead of going to New Brunswick we decided to drive to Clark, because it's a good 20 minutes further and they won't charge us another however much it is to visit two ERs in one day. The woman at the home care company - Sharon, the only person in the whole building because it's a Saturday - went back into the warehouse and tracked down the last size 8 they had (size 8 being the size they told us they used at Princeton; we should have taken into consideration this would be a different brand). When we arrived we quickly realized that an 8 was roughly the size of the coaxial wire for cable television, and in no way suited for our daughters nasal passage. We tried it anyway. Fortunately, there was also one size 6 left. Sharon went and found the size 6, the perfect fit, and we put it in on the cafeteria table.

By the time we got home it was about 2 pm. Gavin was at Grandma and Grandpa's, and Molly was sound asleep from a stressful morning. I decided to take advantage of the quiet and clean up a little and then relax. I settled in on the couch at around 2:45 and spent a solid fifteen minutes resting. Then it was off to the grocery store.

Gotta love a good Lockdown.