Story of Ning #10

Days turn into week. With my leave over, I was back in the office and at times, I confine myself to my workstation due to constant repetition of story telling - I should have blogged about it then and pass them the link instead, increased viewership *laughs*. By now, baby Ning's condition has shown even further improvement, she was officially off antibiotics and subsequently switched to normal oxygen flow - fed to her through nasal tube, no longer requiring the infant nasal CPAP device which looks really uncomfortable, have a look yourself below.

Now imagine your darling baby attached to this everyday. Image sourced from COPYBOOK

That switch to nasal tube had a huge impact on both myself and the wife because other than comfort, we were now able to study her facial features, since it was much more visible. Besides, the nurses also started her on oral feeding via cup, to stimulate the sucking/latching sensation. And most importantly, we were allowed to carry baby Ning *tears of joy* as she's easier to maneuver around and out of the bassinet now.  The wife was courageous enough to eventually attempt that, not that she had much choice considering we're planning and encouraged to breastfeed baby Ning once possible but me, it took ages before I dared to attempt carrying *lacks confidence*.

As days passed, baby Ning showed tremendous improvements, so much that it worried us because it was happening too sudden too soon, as the pressure level was reduced from 0.5 to 0.1 gradually in a few days, since she was able to maintain her SpO2 level and heartbeat rate at a stable/positive percentage point. No issues with her feeding (even her feeding tube was removed later in the week) or discharge and she was recording weight gain as well. There was even a period of time where she was taken off the oxygen feed but that did not last very long since the reading was not encouraging. 

And true to Newton's third law of motion (spiritual application), with every action, there's would be an equal opposite reaction. I received the second love letter from the hospital, although it wasn't as mind crushing as the first one, it was still pretty numbing, especially after learning that the PD's charges have yet to be included in the current total and his consultation fees' pretty steep *boom*  

With his consultation fees now included, the discussion on alternatives resurfaced as baby Ning's condition seemed to have stagnated as well, a couple of attempts to remove the oxygen feed failed. And after much pestering from myself since the discharge date was nowhere to be seen as the bill totaled 25k+ now, the PD, together with the head nurse, finally presented a few options for consideration, being:

1. Remain in NICU, which is the best option 
2. Move to HDU, nurses to baby ratio differs
3. Move to nursery, few nurses to all babies 
4. Move to ward, no nurses
5. Take home with rented oxygen concentrator, self monitoring

There's even more confusion now because true to the PD's 'style', while we were provided with the above options, we had to source for all the nitty-gritty details such the differences, charges, impact on baby Ning and so forth on our own. After much discussion and deliberation, we came up with alternatives which were rejected by the PD. He disagreed with moving baby Ning to the previous hospital as he felt it would have made no differences (to him the cost difference was negligible *roll eyes*), just subjecting her to needless transfer. And he dismissed the option to move baby Ning to the confinement center with an oxygen concentrator, which we felt was the best alternative with professional care and assistance. He stated that the center would have too much human footprint/movement which increases the risk of exposing baby Ning to potential respiratory health hazards.

It was really a "ini tak boleh, itu pun tak boleh" type of situation.

Eventually, we relented and decided to have baby Ning remain for the time bring, due to uncertainties and inability to come to terms with the PD, all the while he kept reminding us of our youth and our ability to earn what has been spent. There were additional cost cutting measures taken, as we started engaging the oxygen concentrator rental, more for familiarization purposes and baby Ning was moved out of NICU to the nursery instead. 

And the saga continues.