We got a phone call to say Florence was moving from Neonates to Ward 1 the Cardiac children’s ward. I went to sit with her because I wanted to be there when moved.
The Nurse and a Doctor transported Florence from floor 2 to floor 1, with a huge crash bag.
Ward 1 was a nice airy children friendly ward,she was moved from her little incubator to a child’s bed…Florence looked tiny. She had gone from being a hulk on neonates with all the premature babies to tiny in the matter of minutes. The nurses were brilliant and made her a little comfy nest to keep her feeling safe and secure and there was a lot more space in this bed for teddies. Due to the new big bed, it was so much easier to get her out of the big bed for cuddles and skin to skin and We started to do all the normal things we would do if we were at home. That night I couldn’t sleep at all, cried on the nurses because I was so terrified of what was coming.
The Prostin is a drug that mimics the hormones of being in the womb and sometimes this can make babies stop/forget to breathe, so whilst on the ward Florrie had a Sleep Apnea machine which would alarm if it had not felt a breathe after 20 seconds. So our early pictures and videos of Flo have an eerie ticking in the background!
The hardest part of the step down from Neonates was not having 1-2-1 nursing. I was still an inpatient so I couldn’t stay with Florence, she was on her own in a big bay, the nurses showed us how all the monitors connected to the monitors at the nurses desk. We were lucky that night because of the amount of patients on the ward Florrie had a 1-2-1 nurse, just because of numbers.
Leicester Royal InfirmaryKeepthebeatHeart LinkTiny Tickers “The Tiny Hearts Charity”Little Hearts MatterEast midlands Congenital Heart CentreBritish Heart Foundation
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