Wednesday night we had a nurse on our schedule that neither Steve nor I knew. I questioned this with the nursing company for over a week only to be told “oh, she was there on the 20th of February.” Hum, both Steve and I racked our brains and couldn’t for the life of us place her. Well, after several times questioning who this person was we were assured she had been to our house. There have been so many people In and out but we are certain of all the nurses who have taken care of Porter. WELL! The doorbell rang and neither one of us knew who the nurse was at the door. Very kind, but I asked if she had worked with Porter before and she said no. She said she told the scheduler that she had never been to our house before but she was still put on his schedule (without any bit of orientation). So- not only had she never been to our house or worked with Porter, she was also supposed to orientate a new nurse! I called the nursing company and told them what was going on. The case manager called me back and said that both nurses would have to leave since one had never been orientated and the other one had only worked with Porter once. I sternly said if she sends both of our nurses home then either she or someone else better get out to our house for the night shift. This is ridiculous. She spoke with the new nurse who has worked in the NICU before and ran through a few things with her over the phone about Porter and his routine. Both nurses ended up staying and everything worked out but the scheduler is under review and is no longer doing Porter’s schedule. We’ve had A LOT of issues with her.
I have interviewed a few nurses from another company to have them fill in the gaps if needed or work some respite hours and I think we have a few good options.
Porter had his swallow study on Monday and he passed with flying colors! They sat him in a chair in a big machine and I fed him some juice on a spoon that had been mixed with Barium. They had a continuous x-ray on his neck so we could see if when he swallowed it went down the “right pipe” and it did! We then tried a little baby food and he swallowed that as well! He has been cleared to start trying baby food a couple times a day. However when we went to the feeding clinic on Thursday he didn’t want anything to do with baby food and had a complete meltdown. The feeding specialist suggested we start with a dry spoon and once he’s comfortable with that going in his mouth to then put some water or formula on the spoon. Once he’s comfortable with that then we can move on to the baby food.
Porter is rolling over, getting his feet to his mouth and making leaps and bounds with his strength. Won’t be long before he’s crawling!