Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Staying Organized

Beware... this is a geeky post:)) I love to organize, I don't always stay organized, but I like it!! I get on these kicks to get organized and the past few days was one of them. Sometimes I feel that I run a small business in our home, with night nursing, day nursing that includes three different nursing schedules. I am very grateful for nursing (I couldn't work with out them) and we love our nurses very much. Also, with my parents watching the kids one day a week, plus Benji and I there are a lot of people coming in and out of our house managing the day to day things and care for Wyatt and Chloe.... especially for Wyatt. Wyatt is camped out in a family room in the middle of everything. All his belongings are also housed in our family room/morning room so since we spend the most time in those rooms, we have to be organized. So here are a few things that we do-

This is the dresser that contains his g-tube kits, connectors, and medication such as his xopenex and flovent. The other drawers contains his clothes, socks, and bibs.

This container has office supplies especially for the nurses. It also has box cutters for all the boxes of supplies and formula that we receive. It contains sharpie markers to date all open containers such as sterile water:) It also has alcohol pads, 3 ml syringes, and lubricate.

We bought his cart to store his oxygen tubing, cannulas, neublizer kits, suction kits, oxygen connectors, pulse ox probes, masks, etc... I love my label maker so I labeled everything. So whoever unpacks the boxes the supplies can go in the right place!

I don't know why this photo is sideways... but it has all the nursing notes divided by type. After they are filled out, it goes into Wyatt's medical binder and also mailed off to the agency. The supervisor checks the binder once a month.

Because we have three different nurses, I try to keep everything consistent by writing down Wyatt's goals for that shift and what to do. I am not being bossy, I am just trying to keep everything the same. So at night, Wyatt gets vented every hour, medication at 12am and 3am, and his food bag filled every four hours. His nasal cannulas will fall out of his nose, so they need to be placed in. While Wyatt is sleeping, the night nurse charges and cleans the machines, organizes the supplies, refills diapers and just gets everything ready for the daytime. We love our night nurse. She currently works 6 days a week from 11-7am. Please don't think I ignore Wyatt because we have nurses. I understand the importance of parent/child bond. When Wyatt cries in the middle of the night or wakes up extra early, we are there for him. The night nurse just allows us to get some sleep since he needs cares hourly while he sleeps. We are there to hold him, rock him, cuddle with him, read to him, etc..

Wyatt's diaper bag (was Chloes, now it's Wyatts with the check list of supplies needed.

Basket of everyday supplies near the changing table such as supplies to clean his g-tube, etc...

Wyatt medical book which contains doctor orders and nursing notes. The supervisor of the insurance company and the agency checks this book. Chloe likes to do art work in it too:))

List of everything to be in the diaper bag. Lately we have been going to doctor appointments once a week. Stocking Wyatt's diaper bag is different than stocking a well baby diaper bag. Besides the essentials, we keep a spare g-tube, connectors, ambu bag, pulse ox probe, and other medical supplies needed for emergencies... for example when we went to the pumpkin farm his g-tube connector fell off and we did not have a spare:)) we learned our lesson.

Day nursing- Nurse K works on Mondays and Nurse S works Tu,Th, Fri. Nurse S also works on Sunday nights. They are both awesome and love Wyatt as much as I do. They interact with him all day long. The day sheet is different than the night sheet since Wyatt only naps from 1-3pm. The day sheet includes his therapy and is divided into physical, cognative, speech, and oral/food. The day nurses also take Wyatt out for long walks, teach him sign language, etc.... I make a point to share with the nurses to treat Wyatt like a normal baby and not like a sick baby.. to interact with him like you would a normal, healthy child.


How do we keep therapy that is scheduled twice a week, doctor appointments, and everything else organized? Well.. since I have a work schedule too, I keep up with everything in my nifty Mom Agenda which has a space for your kids seperate from work-related items. In the past, Wyatt's appointments sometimes were overlooked since they were shuffled in between work stuff... now with my nifty Mom Agenda everything is divided up. It also contains all of Wyatt's medical information, ie- doctors, nursing, pharmarcy, so if I am away from our home and need to get a refill on a med, or rechedule an appointment, I have the info with me:)) I am such a geek!!


For the current month, I transcribe the kids stuff to our wall calendar for the nurses and family members.

Finally, I create a calendar of the nurses schedules

and keep track of our weekly meals on this board- (so any one like my husband can get dinner started if I am not around:))


I know every parent seems like they run a small business inside their home beside working too... this is just a glimpse of our home. Sometimes it gets totally disorganized and I am no where near perfect. I am very thankful of all the help that we do have and appreciate everyone's genorisity.

5 comments:

*super dude and super dog* said...

So Jealous! I LOVE my label maker and my husband makes fun of me. He says he wouldn't be surprised to wake up one morning to find "HUSBAND" across his forhead! Thanks for sharing your ideas.

Why Is It??? said...

OMG....You are amazing!

Unknown said...

I am so proud of you Kogers. Wow. This was inspiring for me and probably for all moms who read it. Gina, Wow.

I'm sure that this post is extremely helpful for moms who have babies/kids with CDH at home. It is like what we preach in education, right? Learn from each other, share ideas, and don't reinvent the wheel! I LOVE your checklist for the diaper bag! I wish I had thought of that when I carried one, even for well babies.

Awesome post, Supermom!

Laura H.

Vicki Jensen said...

You're as bad as me! We should plan a joint trip to Staples to buy organizational supplies! It came out so great! I'm off to organize my desk now....

:-)

Vic

LORI said...

Gina... You are awesome and always have been! Even before Wyatt was born Amy and I were amazing at how organized you are, how thoughtful and prepared you always are and especially how quickly you can through a perfect dinner party together!!!