Celia comes home

After the first 22 days of her traumatic life, Celia was released from APH. (Arnold Palmer Hospital) .Mom & Dad were given a crash course in apnea monitors, suction pump machines, nebulizers, & feeding pumps. Celia failed her car-seat test so we were forced to buy a lie-down baby seat to carry her home. We made it back to the house & settled into our new routine. Luckily Marcy's sister Lori had flown out from Nashville to help with the baby so we were extremely grateful to have someone with newborn experience on hand. All went well for the first week at home. We established our routines for feeding & medicating the baby. We started the ball rolling with Occupational, Physical & sight therapy & learned what the true problems were.
When Celia was a month old she suffered an apnea (her breathing stopped). Marcy was able to stimulate her to get her to start breathing & we called the Neonatologist (Dr Hardy) @APH to find out what to do. They told us to bring her down to the ER @ ORMC then she would be admitted to APH. At this point Celia had no pediatrician, so was at the mercy of the ER doctors. We rushed to the hospital in Friday afternoon rush hour traffic, trying to stay cool. We pulled into the ambulance bay & parked in the first spot available. As we were disembarking from the car a security guard yelled "Hey! You can't park there!" I explained to the genius with the badge that we had an emergency & our baby had stopped breathing recently. He kindly informed me that I would be towed if I left the car there. After sharing my thoughts with him & the other 50 people in the ambulance bay about his intelligence & compassion at the top of my lungs & in lots of dirty words, I told him he could tow the f...ing car & went inside. The calm nurses soon took care of business & in a short amount of time they diagnosed Celia with RSV. No big deal with adults but potentially fatal to our little angel. They said they would have to admit her to APH again so sit tight & wait for an ambulance to transport her the 200 yards to the adjoining hospital. Marcy left for the airport to bring our friend Chris from Milwaukee to see the baby. We stood around waiting for the transport team to come & collect Celia. The hours ticked by. The girls went home. 10 hours later they finally transported Celia, me & what was left of my sanity to APH. I checked her into the PICU ward & called Marcy to come & get me.
They kept Celia in the PICU for 3 days before transferring her to an isolation room in the "Special Care Unit". The treatment didn't appear to be very special there so we decided to camp out in shifts with Grandma, Marcy & I showing the staff there what special care really is. After 3 days in an isolation room they moved her to a regular private room without masks & gowns. After a few days on oxygen & other treatments we were allowed to finally bring our little angel home again where she finished her recovery & continues to improve.