Sweet sleep

Gabrielle was only kept in the hospital until Wednesday afternoon. Everything from her renal ultrasound and x-ray checked out ok so there was no reason to keep her cooped up in the hospital. Bart and I both agreed that Tuesday night in the hospital was one of our worst nights with her not resting. They had given her Melatonin to help her sleep and Robaxin for a muscle relaxer but neither seemed to help. Thursday afternoon I spoke to my boss Angie at the pharmacy where I work so that could tell me about how Melatonin works. While talking about the Melatonin and whether it would help her or not we also talked about what she was doing in her sleep. I told her it is the most restless sleep I have ever watched. Gabrielle would constantly move around, thrash her arms, and cry out. We went over the list of medications she is currently on and Angie remembered another customers child having nightmares and restless sleep on Ditropan (Oxybutynin). Ditropan is the medication she is on for bladder spasms. They also had her on Oxytrol patches which is a topical application of Oxybutynin so really she was getting a double dose. Sometimes these children need that much because the spasms are so bad because their bladder muscle has never functioned before so it has to get used to holding urine. Thursday night Bart and I decided to take off her Oxytrol patch and skip her bedtime dose of Ditropan we also increased her dose of Melatonin because she wasn't getting a very large dose. And incredibly she only woke up twice all night long, whined for just a minute and then went right back to sleep. I almost got up to check and make sure she was breathing at one point. We put a call into the Urology department at the hospital to get their thoughts on what we had done and if they had any ideas. Katie, NP and Dr. VanderBrink said that we could continue trying just giving her 2 doses of Ditropan a day instead of the 3 we had been doing. They said if we noticed that she started having bladder spasms that we may want to switch her from  just the liquid to just the patches because the patches tend to have less side effects. We decided to stick with the liquid through the weekend and see how she does. Last night she slept pretty good still only waking a couple of times but it did take her longer to settle but all in all a pretty good night. Please pray that the medication side effects are what is causing her restlessness and that we can find the right dosing for her.

We are planning on bringing her to the movies this afternoon. We have a few visitors coming next week. My dad, my granny and Bart's granny will all be making trips in this Tuesday. Please pray that they all have safe travels. We appreciate them all coming to visit. Not that Bart and I don't enjoy the time together with our girls but having some other adults to talk to will be nice! Hope you all have a great weekend! 

Please continue to pray for our friend Carter. He gets his external fixator off this coming Wednesday. I am so excited for his mom and dad!!!
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