Blog from dad!!

Good Morning KSG,

I want to start of by thanking all of you for the continued prayers, support, and reaching out. It is all of you that helps us get through the days and nights. If all of you were not out there, I don't know how we would do it.
I mentioned yesterday in my journal posting of a friend that is walking in the upcoming March of Dimes walk in honor of Kolton (aka Kolton’s Kruisers), I wanted to post her info:
www.marchforbabies.org/christeen
www.koltonthompson.blogspot.com

She is trying to raise $500 and is currently at $200. Any help she could get, we would be greatly appreciative. The walk is April 26, 2009, 400 Kenwood Parkway, Minneapolis, MN 55403Walk Distance: 4 milesRegistration Time: 10:00AMStart Time: 11:00 AMChapter: Greater Twin CitiesPhone #: (952) 835-3033
Thank you for your support of her, the March of Dimes, Kolton, and our family.

One other thing I forgot to mention was my take on Kolton and Tavyn meeting for the first time. It was amazing. I have never seen Tavyn so quiet, well behaved, solemn, frozen, etc... When we walked in Tavyn had to put on a mask, so I put one on to show him that it is okay, then we put on his. The mask was a little too big for his face and it kept sliding up into his eyes. As I carried him into the open bay where Kolton is at he seemed to instinctively know where his brother was located, his eyes focused like a laser beam onto to his brother. As we got closer to Kolton, Tavyn froze and his eyes got as big as saucers. There was an uncanny feeling in the air that these two boys knew exactly who they were and what they meant to each other. As Tavyn leaned forward out of my embrace to peer into Kolton's isolete, Kolton raised his tiny little arm towards Tavyn. At that point Tavyn reached his arm out to Kolton and leaned towards him as if he wanted to hold him. At that point I had to restrain him, and he screamed, and we exited the bay. All I can say is that the whole experience took my breath away!

Now onto Kolton, he is doing fine... about 5 lbs 11 ozs. I actually had to kick a nurse out of his area last night... this all started about 2 weeks ago. There was a nurse that was “caring” for Kolton 2 weeks ago, the minute I walked in to see Kolton and I met her, my parental sixth sense went crazy. This nurse seemed a little odd from the get go. She kept rambling about odd stuff, i.e. vampires, children raised by dogs, children raised by mentally handicapped people, etc... Not the kind of conversation that you would find appropriate for a NICU? To get her off of the odd topics I asked her his weight and she kept getting the conversion wrong from metric to standard. I ended up having to calculate it myself with a chart I have. I went about my business of tending to Kolton and ignoring her. She tried talking to the other nurses; they even tried avoiding her, as they walked away from her rolling their eyes. Now Kolton always gets a 9:00 feeding and the nurses typically start preparing his food at 8:45. I left the hospital at 8:55 with that uncomfortable feeling in my stomach that I don't want her to be taking care of Kolton. I also noticed that she had not prepared his dinner; I figured she would get to it a little later. Apparently not! The next day I came in, Kolton lost weight, 4 ozs!!! I talked to the MD and as we scanned the previous night’s records, there was a missing entry for his 9:00 feeding. The MD confronted the nurse and the nurse admitted that she forgot to feed him. No apologies or anything. The next two days his stats were like a roller coaster!!! You can only imagine how that made me feel!!! I vented my anger and frustration to the MD and stated that I do not want that nurse to ever care for Kolton again; I don't even want her near him. I went on to express that what if he needed an Rx that kept him alive and she forgot... So I thought we had resolution, and then last night happened! I came in to the hospital and the nurse that was taking care of Kolton was out to dinner. So I proceeded to Kangaroo with Kolton. Not 15 minutes later, guess who walks in, the crazy nurse. My blood pressure instantly spiked, I began to shake with anger and proceeded to yell for her to get away from my son, to get out, to go get the on-duty MD. She stood there asking what was wrong, as if she completely forgot what happened 2 weeks prior! She acted as though she has never seen me? I continued to let my voice rise stating the same requests. She finally got the hint and left. The MD came in and reassured me that said nurse will not care for Kolton ever again and gave us another nurse for the night. The good thing is that our neighbors George and Sue surprised me and came by right after everything happened. It was perfect timing that they showed up. I was able to vent the situation to them and they in turn consoled me. Plus they got to spend some quality time with Kolton.
So where do we go from here? We want to lodge a formal complaint… so we are looking into the formalities.

Sorry to burden all of you with this, but as a parent a lot of you can understand where we are coming from. I had to vent somewhere. I understand that people make mistakes… but shouldn’t the NICU be a “mistake free zone”? These are precious little lives that need extra care and attention. The only thing that we can do is put it into God’s hands!
Have a wonderful week.

All of our Love,
The Thompson Tribe