This is what you walk in to. It's intimidating. And all these machines beep.
Sometimes Ruthe likes to set them off on her own, because she can. Like when she breathes over the respirator, it makes a loud honking kind of beep. And if she yanks off one of her chest-stickers, the monitor beeps low at first and then higher if it takes too long to fix the problem. The bed measures her temperature, and goes off if she's playing with that little probe and its sticker. Her IV pumps she can't control, but they're timed to go off every so often so a nurse has to check the settings.
The IV pumps give Ruthe her daily dose of baby-gatorade, that's the bag hanging. Some lipids, for pure calories so she doesn't lose too much weight. And any and all medications they need to give her. These all go into her body through the PICC line in her ankle.
This is obvious. It shows her heart rate [green], the amount of oxygen in her blood before and after going through her heart [blue], and her breaths per minute [pink]. And it shows the time.
The OMNI bed [that's just what I decided to call it, I'm pretty sure it says that somewhere... there's also a giraffe on it somewhere, too] holds Ruthe. It's a bed, for all intents and purposes. But it has a lid. And a heat lamp. And a LOT of cords and wires running in and out of it. It has those hand-holes, too, so you can reach in and touch her even when the lid's closed.
This is the respirator. Or ventilator. Whatever. It has about forty-seven numbers on it at all times. I don't know what any of them mean. Luckily, a respiratory therapist comes by every couple hours to check those mysterious numbers and write things down on a chart hanging from it. Whenever I see them I make sure to ask if everything looks good. The answer has pretty much always been "Yes".
And now, as a reward for looking at all those boring machines, here is another video of Ruthe. She learned some new hand-flexing tricks and how to pretend being cold. She even sticks out her tongue for you!!
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