May has been a rough month so far. We had a night nurse that had been with Casey for about 2 years. Up until early 2012 she was good. She was late all the time, but she never called in and did a good job when she was here. We could live with the lateness since she was good with Casey. However this year we started having other issues with her (I won’t go into details). After a while it just got to be too much. We let her go at the end of April. She was doing 5 nights a week. So here leaving means I have been the night nurse. I seriously don’t know how I did this for 4 years before we got night nurses.
Our weekend nurse that has been doing Saturday and Sunday nights offered to pick up 3 more and go full time with us. However, she had other patients. The agency had to find coverage for her other patients before she could switch over to working with us full time. This week she was able to pick up 4 nights, and starting next week she will be covering 5. We hired a new nurse to pick up the other 2. I stayed up with her this week to train her on Casey’s sounds, movements, schedule, etc. She did pretty good. It takes any nurse at least a few shifts to really pick up on Casey’s needs. I hope that this week I can do spot checks (every hour or so) and that by June she will be all set.
Of course, while we are short handed Casey got sick. She has tummy issues off and on all the time. Usually we can give her something and get them under control pretty quick. This last bout was not so easy. In addition to the tummy issue she also seems to have an eye and possibly ear infection going on at the same time. We were about to head to the ER last weekend when she finally started to show some improvement. I think she heard me say we were going to the ER and she was not having it 🙂
She missed school this week and last, but the plan is for her to get back to class this week. She has a field trip to a bookstore this week for story time (of course this means that I drive her and her nurse and we just meet the teacher at the store- but it still counts as a field trip).
There have been a few highlights since out last post- it hasn’t all been bad. The very last weekend in April we organized a special needs play group. The organization I started last year CLU Campaign, hosted the playgroup at the new accessible playground in Round Rock. It was a lot of fun. Casey had a rough morning and Tim was busy, so the shower I had planned on getting did not happen (welcome to being a mom), but other than a really bad hair day, everything was great. We are hoping to have special needs playgroups at least quarterly. If I can make it happen monthly I will, but no promises.
Casey has started music therapy again. Tim found a music therapist (at Coffee Bean of all places) that is great with Casey. She started a couple weeks ago and is going to come to the house twice a month. She has also agreed/volunteered to help with the next playgroup so we can make it a music playgroup. I think it will be so much fun. As soon as I find the place we will make that happen.
The nurse that has been on maternity leave is going to start doing a couple half days again in June. Casey will be very excited to have her back. She has gone to visit her nurse and the baby a couple of times. She is always so excited to see her nurses. We are very lucky to have such amazing nurses. I really think we have the best ones.
Between needing to sleep for doing the night shift and Casey being sick, we kind of skipped Mother’s Day last weekend. My family is coming over tomorrow for a delayed Mother’s Day lunch. It should be a nice day. We hope that everyone is doing well.