The Vest

Gracie came home from CHOC late Thursday afternoon. Friday, the 22nd, was a buzz of supply deliveries, new equipment set ups and general household chores which seem to multiply like fertile little rabbits while she's inpatient. Amongst the new equipment/supplies in our small, efficient home hospital, is "The Vest" - - a fabulous (if your child likes it - - which both of mine do... more on that below) airway clearance machine that literally vibrates the mucous right out of the lungs (or at least loosens it enough to be coughed or suctioned out).

Used every four hours while she was in the hospital, The Vest was very effective. The home treatment regimen is essentially the same as at the hospital, and thus, has me pretty overwhelmed. Gracie has so many treatments per day that it's taken me a few days to get a handle on a schedule that I could manage and make sure she tolerated. Her current regimen entails using the vest while taking a nebulizer treatment of Xopenex & Mucomyst. She stays on the vest for another neb treatment of Dnase, comes off the vest and gets a treatment of Pulmicort and then another of Tobi - - TWICE a day. In between these "marathon" treatments, she gets additional vest treatments with Xopenex every four hours. All of this, coupled with feedings, her regular meds and her added two-week regimen of both Cipro and Zyvox (both of which yield lovely diapers at least every hour) and you have a pretty busy kiddo (and mama) who hasn't even left the house! Add in three doctor appointments this week, a lab draw this week and three appointments next week and, well, you get the idea! It's worth it, though.

The Vest, it turns out, could be the big hero for Gracie, given all the bugs she tends to regularly host, plus the ones she is so easily picking up. Because her sinuses are chronic and she doesn't swallow, the bacteria that she harbors in those wide open sinuses easily travels to her lungs when she micro-aspirates. The hope is that the use of the vest will keep things broken up and moving out. Thankfully, she really, really loves it... all that input is like a dream for her! She happily signs for it (almost on schedule) by patting her chest (which is her sign for the vest) and then signs "trach medicine." It's quite possible this might trump her love for baths!

Preston, who did not visit her in the hospital this time, was fascinated by the new "shaky shake" machine that was delivered and wanted to know what it was all about. I explained to him that it is definitely not a toy, but also wanted him to get an idea what it was like for Gracie. Little did I know that videoing his three minute experiment would provide me with hours of enjoyment. John and I can't help but giggle when we watch him in this. I didn't include the whole thing... I think it's mostly funny to us because we're his parents! In any case, hope this little clip brings you a chuckle, too!