08/11/2025
I never thought I'd be having to hold Autumn, telling her everything would be OK, while nurses were desperately trying to put a canular in. Wednesday Autumn was having a kidney test. She had to have an injection and four lots of bloods taken over a four hour period. What should have been a four hour test, turned into 7.5 hours.
It has always been hard work for Autumn to have a cannular fitted- even when in the NICU. It always started with the nurse trying to fit one, then it was escalated to someone else, before a consultant tried. Wednesday, we had a couple of nurses try, on her hands that had numbing cream on, to no avail. We then had a consultant with an ultrasound machine fit the cannular in her arm. It was a success, but due to trouble with location, no numbing cream used this time and it clearly hurt. We went out for an hour for a walk around the hospital before returning for the next blood test. Cannular didn't work. So frustrating. For the next hour, the nurses desperately tried to fit another cannular. This time they managed to fit one in her foot, but unfortunately, the blood was very slow to come out and eventually stopped at the end, so it wouldn't work for the last test. We only had 15 minutes before the next test, so we stayed put. As Autumn had already had 4 attempts at cannulars, they decided a heel prick would be better. They pricked her heel and Autumn screamed out in pain again, heartbreaking to know that these tests are so regular for Autumn, she is such a trooper, but she doesn't deserve to go through these kinds of tests all the time. Autumn was struggling to bleed, as one of the nurses put it, they got the tiniest amount of blood, so they decided to prick her big toe instead- a very tender part of the body. Autumn had had enough by this point, she was really crying and upset, and rightly so. The staff were absolutely brilliant with her and Autumn was smiling and waving at them again as soon as they had finished taking her blood, but they were getting that final blood test for about 10 minutes.
We finally left the hospital at 5.45pm, having arrived at 10am it was a very long and exhausting day, for all of us, but mostly Autumn, being proded, poked and stabbed, in 6 different places.
We stopped off for some late night dinner on the way home and by the time we arrived home, Autumn was very tired, and uncomfortable. A long cuddle with mummy to calm her down and reassure her was definitely needed.
To make matters slightly worse, we are back again next week, for a slightly different test, but again, will need a cannular and it will be another long day, but it needs to be done.
