Month: February 2018

Crying in the Car

On By RachelWIn Trach LifeLeave a comment

After a rough night for Mae, today was a good day. She was firmly on #TeamNap and just enjoyed playing with us and with her new Toby Tracheasaurus that arrived. She’s now off in baby dreamland.

Today was also tough emotionally for me. For years, I listened to my hometown radio station do a radioathon for the local children’s hospital. The set people’s stories to songs and play them throughout the day, while asking people to donate money to the hospital. Today was the radioathon here and Mae’s story was featured. I was able to hold it together when they did the taping, but when I heard the final product today, I lost it. Our song was fittingly, Fight Song. You can listen to the song here.

I took the morning and ran long put off errands and heard many of these stories. I’ve heard similar ones before and might have teared up, but today, hearing these stories as a medical mom had me crying in my car driving across town. We spent 10 months, 307 days, inpatient with Mae and got to bring her home. I know way too many moms now that didn’t get that joy of bringing their child home from the hospital.

Tonight, Mae got extra squeezes as I think about a boy & his duck and Judebug, just two of the sweet boys who didn’t get to come home after the last trip to the hospital. I think about them and their amazing momma’s a lot.

A Day In The Life of Me

On By RachelWIn Trach LifeLeave a comment

It’s Tuesday. When I had the wheels spinning to start a blog, I wanted to write about our life & living normally with a trach child. So Trach Tuesday was born.

Before our sweet girl arrived 15 weeks early (that’s a story for another day), I worked full time as a lending assistant. Now, 14 months later, my life is vastly different. Gone are the days of running errands after work or on my lunch hour. I don’t have a lunch hour anymore.

Today our day looked like this:

  • 5:30 am – Husband leaves for work
  • 6:15 am – Our night nurse wakes Mae & starts her morning respiratory treatments.
  • 6:30 – I wake up, do my morning stuff & get the end of shift report.
  • 7 – Our night nurse leaves. I get Mae’s feeding & morning meds ready to go.
  • 7:30 – Feed Mae via her G-Tube and catch the Today Show.
  • 8 – Our day nurse arrived! (We have day nursing or respite care 2-3 days a week). Mae took a 30 minute nap.
  • 8:30 – Mae & her nurse play, work on therapy. I go lay down.
  • 10:30 – Mae gets a spa day (bath, hair, nail & trach ties changed. I take a quick shower.
  • 11 – Mae lays down for a 45 minute nap. Her nurse & I eat lunch.
  • 11:30 – Mae is fed while sleeping.
  • 12:15 – Respiratory treatment for Mae (Grandma calls this her peace pipe)
  • 12:30 – We gather everything needs to take Mae out of the house. This includes a go bag (trach emergency), suction machine, oxygen tank, pulse ox machine, normal diaper bag and stroller.
  • 1 – Therapy sessions for Mae. This week she moved to two times a week from three. She has three, 30 minute sessions. Physical, Occupational & Feeding therapists work on a a variety of things with Mae to help her development.
  • 2:30 – Head home, Mae takes a 30 minute nap. Today we moved her 3:30 Feeding to 2:45.
  • 3:30 – In Home therapy for Mae. This is through the early development network with our public schools.
  • 4 – Our day nurse leaves.
  • 4:30 – Therapists leave, I try to get Mae to take a short nap since she was going all her ‘I’m tired’ signals. No such luck today.
  • 5 – Husband arrives home. I get dinner going while he entertains Mae.
  • 5:45 – Dinner
  • 6:15 – Start getting Mae ready for bed. (A little early tonight since we can tell she is exhausted) Mae gets more respiratory treatments.
  • 7 – Dinner for Mae. She receives all meals and medicine through her G- Tube.
  • 7:30 – Mae’s bedtime tonight! We read a story and move her into her room. We call moving her the Mae Train since we have a cart that holds her suction & pulse ox, trach supplies, respiratory treatments and diapers that moves with her from room to room.
  • 8 – I start a load of laundry, clean the kitchen & make lunch for the next day.
  • 8:30 – Husband goes to bed, he gets up at 4:30.
  • 11 – Our night nurse arrives. I give the daily report, letting them know of anything special to do in the morning or during the night. During their shift, they make sure Mae’s pulse ox numbers stay where they need to be, give feedings and respiratory treatments at 11:30 & 3:30, clean equipment & make formula for the next day.
  • 11:30 – I get in bed, usually falling asleep around 12:15.

And that’s our day in a nutshell. Throughout the day, we suction Mae to remove any secretions.

Pesto Chicken Pizza

On By RachelWIn RecipesLeave a comment

Who doesn’t love pizza for dinner? While searching Pinterest one night for dinner inspiration, I came across a pesto pizza recipe. The problem, I didn’t have half of the 20+ ingredient list. A few nights later, I made this pizza and never went back to the Pinterest one.

A few months later, my brother was in town and I made it for him. He even said it was good. Even better, he called later and asked for the recipe!

Preheat Oven to 400

Prep time – 20 min (includes prebake & microwave time for bacon)

Bake time – 10 min

  1. Roll out pizza crust & sprinkle with Italian seasoning. Prebake for 8 min.
  2. Spread pesto on crust. I use the back of a spoon.
  3. Layer on bacon, chicken & cheese.
  4. Bake for 6-10 min.

Chicken Pesto Pizza

1 Refrigerated Pizza Crust (I like thin crust)

Italtion Seasonings to taste

1 cup prepared Pesto

1 cup cooked chicken (I buy precooked)

1-2 cups pizza cheese

Chopped red onion (optional)

Butter Biscuits

On By RachelWIn RecipesLeave a comment

Moving into my first apartment many years ago, I missed my Dad’s biscuits. He made them maybe once a month and they were so good. Over the years, I’ve developed my own recipe, similar to his.

What great about my recipe, is that it’s easy, made with just Bisquick, milk & butter.

Preheat your oven to 450.

  1. Mix Bisquick and milk until dough forms. Turn out on floured (I just use more Bisquick) surface and knead 10 times.
  2. Roll dough to half inch thickness.
  3. Butter step – you can go about this two ways: Grate frozen butter or slice butter into thin slices.
  4. You will create a few layers. Once you butter, fold the dough in half and roll out again.
  5. Repeat butter step 2-4 times.
  6. Cut dough into biscuits. I use a wine glass for my perfect size.
  7. Bake for 8-10 minutes.
  8. Serve plain, with more butter, jelly or honey.

Butter Biscuits

2 1/2 cups Bisquick

2/3 cup Milk

Butter

Adventure

On By RachelWIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

It’s not that I don’t like adventure, I just like to have an idea of where I’m going and how to get there.

My husband loves adventures and loves to hop in the truck and just drive. When we lived in Texas, we would go on adventures and while I always ended up having fun, I wasn’t a fan of not knowing where we were going (his answer was always, “To hell if we don’t change our ways”). I did get to see miles and miles of Texas with our weekend adventures.

Today, I begin a new adventure, this blog. I’ve been craving a creative outlet in my new life as a stay at home trach mom. I have loose plans in a small spiral notebook and ideas in my head, an adventure I can control.

And so the adventure begins.