Update on James and Hospital Life

James still has the ventilator on, which means he's still sedated. His oxygen level is 93.7% and it needs to be higher than that before they take him off the ventilator.

It's just the three of us here now: myself, Jon, and my mom. My mom will be headed to a motel for the night, since only 2 adults are allowed to stay in the waiting room thru the night. We'll use that motel as our resting place if one of us needs to get away and get some sleep or a nice shower. The waiting room is equipped with chairs that pull out into beds, and a shower, so Jon and I will be camping out here. There are snacks that people donate, toiletries, and even laundry detergent to use with the washing machines when it's time to do laundry.

The hospital has a "pumping room" for nursing moms. It's in the NICU and has curtains partitioning off four areas of a room. The hospital provides the pump and the accessories, and there is a bin of sterile bottles in every pumping area, as well as books and CDs. Once I'm finished pumping, I put the bottles in a box labeled with James's name, lock it with a padlock, and put it in a large glass-front fridge. There are bottles of water there for the moms to take. The nurses then will freeze the milk every day. When James is ready to take milk, the nurses will thaw out enough for a day's worth of feeding, and will provide it to the CVICU. At first they'll give James the milk thru a tube that goes directly to his intestines, and just enough to jump start his digestive system once again.

This is my first time since getting here this morning that I've just been sitting. Maybe it's time for me to bust out my knitting needles and see if I can make heads or tails of my new hobby!