Can you sign, "Drama Queen?"

Our family had some drama tonight at an un-named alternative grocery store which I think has
pretty much scared the crap out of a whole bunch of grocers. Jer was
working today, and he had previously asked them about getting one of
their old gray kiddie shopping carts for Kiera to use with her
ventilator to facilitate learning to walk. They were going to sell me
one for $40 because they had upgraded to new prettier ones, and I
guess they cost $120 new. I have no nursing lately, so I was faced
with the option of waiting till Tuesday when I have a nurse, or
packing Kiera up with my 2 teenagers and trekking to the store. I
rarely do this since they are not well versed on how to help in an
emergency while we are driving, so I would have to pull over for
anything more serious than reconnecting her ventilator to her trach.

Anyway, I risked it and took her out thinking she has been doing
really well, and we wouldn't have any problems. You can probably
foresee that Murphy's Law will again rear its ugly head. Part of me
thought that having Kiera with me might charm them down on their price,
too. Who could say "no" to that smile?

Anyway, I guess Kiera had a huge plug she was trying to cough up, and
she started desatting right after we got in the store to look at the
carts. So here we are at a booth at the front of the store by the
registers. I suctioned Kiera 3 times, bumped her O2, took off her shoe
to make sure the SAT probe was reading accurately, and finally sent my
oldest to the car for the bagging tank. Now we are bagging her in the
store in front of every shopper who's checking out. I had one stepson
bagging her while I did a ventilator check, and no matter what I did
(changing tanks on the vent, changing tubing, etc) I could not get her
SAT's to stay up on the ventilator. So I gave her a Xopenex inhaler
treatment which didn't seem to help much and kept bagging while one of
the boys called dad to come help us bag her all the way home. I didn't
feel safe about driving with them bagging.

So, while waiting for daddy, I still had to page the manager back to us
to discuss the shopping cart purchase. Interesting enough, the white
look on his face as I explained that we were having a minor medical
emergency, that my husband was coming, that no, we did not need him to
call 911 but that I had a phone if I decided to go that route, and
what I'd really like to decide is whether he'd like a check or charge
card for the kiddie cart caused him to allow us to just take the cart
free of charge. :) I think what he wanted to have follow was, "Just
as long as you don't come back to freak out my peace loving customers,
lady."

So all in all, the trip was a success. We are back home on the home
ventilator having gotten some thick mucous out and run some extra
nebs, and she seems much better. She still has an elevated heart rate and temp, but is getting feisty again. I think she just didn't take kindly
to having been woken up from a nap for this outing. Of course, I
wasn't too keen on being up with her from 1:40-5am this morning
either...which is what I told her. I think we have an understanding. :)

Therese