ABIGAIL NEWTON SMITH

Thursday, 15th November 2001 - Day 91

Hello again, well at last I have some new stuff to tell you all about. Today started off like my last few with the nurses trying out "Operation Prongs", this was their new strategy to sneak up on me whilst I was fast asleep and put the CPAP unit back on my head. There I am quiet as an lamb, fast asleep and they rush in at high speed, grab my head and put the CPAP unit on and escape quickly before I realise what is happening. The next thing I know is that I wake up and there is this horrible plastic thing up my nose.

Later on in the afternoon one of the nurses, Chrissie, came round to talk to Mummy and told her that they were going to take me to Room 7........ What on earth goes on there I was thinking, I hope it is not more tests. Then to my surprise Chrissie grabs me and straps this tube thing to my head. It has 2 little prongs which pop up my nose and feels much better than the CPAP unit, which I thought was going to be put on. Not being sure quite how to react as it did not do much at first, I thought I would see what else would happen. Then Chrissie started unplugging all my leads, most odd this does not normally happen. I thought I might be getting another bath, but no my clothes were left on. Mummy was then given me to cuddle and I began to think OK, just another cuddle. Then I felt all this bouncing up and down, which I was not used to, Mummy was walking out of the intensive care unit area and away from my room. This really confused me as I have not been out of there for 13 whole weeks since I was born. I was taken into another room and cuddled there, it was lovely as there were no buzzers, beeps or talking, just me Mummy and Chrissie. This is great I thought my own room all on my own.

Then Mummy decided to suffocate me again, however this time I was comfortable, relaxed and awake that I took to it like a duck to water. I sucked away for ages and got lots of nice milk. So this was a real first and Mummy was overjoyed that I did so well. However during this Mummy realised that as I was not connected to my monitors any more she did not know if I was still doing OK as the little tube Chrissie had attached had been connected to the wall and oxygen piped in to me at low pressure. This is called "Low Flow" and Mummy tells me is the next stage of my breathing progression. Hooray, no more CPAP as long as I carry on doing well. To see how I was doing Chrissie got a portable monitor and set it up so Mummy could see my oxygen saturation. 100% all the time, what a clever little thing I must be, and a quick learner too as I needed no prompting to breath properly using my new tube. It is very likely that you will be seeing a lot more of the tube over the next few weeks and months as Mummy says that they may be able to take me home using it.

My MRI scan thing has been postponed for a couple of weeks whilst I try and sort out my breathing a bit better, so you will have to wait for the results of that. What a shame I was looking forward to another trip out....

Last Updated : 18/11/01.