Wednesday, February 25th, 2009

Things just didn't seem to go right today. It started last night, actually, when my pulse oximeter machine (it monitors my heart rate and oxygen saturation levels) continued to show that my heart rate was too low and alarmed off constantly. It has been happening for several days so Mommy called the DME company to report the problem. After 15 minutes on the phone going through various "fixes" they finally agreed that it was a problem when the lead was not attached to anything or anyone and came up with a oxygen saturation level of 86% and a heart rate of 160! The RT said she would get with their warehouse manager and get back with Mommy and shocker - they never called back. So it's going to be another night with a broken pulse ox machine. Luckily, Nicole keeps a close eye on me since she can't trust the machine right now.

I was just not in the right mood for feeding therapy today with Karen. I threw several spoons at her and was all together unwilling to participate for most of the session. At the end, Mommy let me down from my highchair and gave me a Gerber puff. Now yesterday I ate like 15 over the course of an hour with no problems. Within a few seconds of eating it, though, I was off watching my Signing Time video and started gagging and then threw up everything I had just eaten during feeding therapy. Karen thinks it may be a situation where I was so busy paying attention to the video that I wasn't paying attention to what was in my mouth - thus the gagging and vomiting. To be safe, though, she wants my parents to keep a close eye on me with eating anything that is not crushed up.

When it came time for my last feeding of the day, Mommy tried to turn on the machine but the on/off button didn't seem to work. Daddy came home a few minutes later and he tried as well. He decided the button seemed to be broken so Mommy called the after hours line for the manufacturer. While she was on the phone she was able to power it on but it was really hard. I went ahead and got my feeding but trying to turn it off was even worse. The manufacturer said to call back during normal business hours tomorrow to see if they could send us a loaner while ours gets fixed. So that's two out of four of my machines that are on the fritz - my parents are hoping this is not a sign of worse things to come!

Peyton Nicole Smith