post op day one, tough day
so it turns out that the sighting of the handsome security guard who rescued me was the highlight of my day. ( except for visits from kristy and kelli who arrived in the midst of the tough stuff so i didn’t really get to express my appreciation for the food and care packages. THANK YOU)
today was really hard. harder in fact than yesterday, which was hard too but in a different way. waiting for surgery, and sitting through surgery were both difficult, but i knew that my job was to wait and be patient. (believe it or not, i can do that when needed.)
today my job changed to being the one caring for hazel and advocating for her. we got moved out of the picu to the regular floor this afternoon about 20 hours post op. i had been told that she would stay at least 24 hours and maybe more, so this was early. but s he was stable and the floor was busy. i have to say that the picu nurses are stellar. really really on top of pain management and since it is one to one or one to two kids, they are there for anything and everything. they were incredible.
i had heard that the regular floor is a different story . today i found that out the hard way. hazel went from getting iv narcotics every 30 minutes to getting tylenol and torodol every couple of hours. hmm, open heart surgery and tylenol for pain management less than 24 hours after the bone saw and the knife... i should have figured that one out sooner. we arrived here at 2:30. she was sound asleep but got rudely awakened when they pulled her pacemaker wires and changed her bed. it was definitely down hill from there. and i sat in a hard wooden rocking chair- think your grandparents- until almost 7pm trying to get her calm enough so that i could put her in the crib so she could really sleep, and i could pee and eat. sure i could miss a few meals and survive , but its grim to be low blood sugar and sleep deprived. some of the time she was sleeping lightly, but not enough that i could put her down. as the afternoon wore on, she got more and more fussy. the nurses who were perfectly nice, dutifully took vitals and brought in tylenol but didn't;’t do much more. in fact when she was crying and screaming, they would quietly close the door and say “i’ll come back”. it finally it dawned on me that she wasn’t mad, she was in pain. so after nearly 2 hours of crying she got some iv meeds and has been asleep for the last 2 hours.
i just turned into a high maintinence mom and talked with the night nurse about continuing the narcotics and keeping her comfortable so she can sleep. so i hope that the night is better than the day. vitals are due soon so we’ll see how that goes.
i’ll be scarlet o hara for a few minutes and think that tomorrow is another day.
today was really hard. harder in fact than yesterday, which was hard too but in a different way. waiting for surgery, and sitting through surgery were both difficult, but i knew that my job was to wait and be patient. (believe it or not, i can do that when needed.)
today my job changed to being the one caring for hazel and advocating for her. we got moved out of the picu to the regular floor this afternoon about 20 hours post op. i had been told that she would stay at least 24 hours and maybe more, so this was early. but s he was stable and the floor was busy. i have to say that the picu nurses are stellar. really really on top of pain management and since it is one to one or one to two kids, they are there for anything and everything. they were incredible.
i had heard that the regular floor is a different story . today i found that out the hard way. hazel went from getting iv narcotics every 30 minutes to getting tylenol and torodol every couple of hours. hmm, open heart surgery and tylenol for pain management less than 24 hours after the bone saw and the knife... i should have figured that one out sooner. we arrived here at 2:30. she was sound asleep but got rudely awakened when they pulled her pacemaker wires and changed her bed. it was definitely down hill from there. and i sat in a hard wooden rocking chair- think your grandparents- until almost 7pm trying to get her calm enough so that i could put her in the crib so she could really sleep, and i could pee and eat. sure i could miss a few meals and survive , but its grim to be low blood sugar and sleep deprived. some of the time she was sleeping lightly, but not enough that i could put her down. as the afternoon wore on, she got more and more fussy. the nurses who were perfectly nice, dutifully took vitals and brought in tylenol but didn't;’t do much more. in fact when she was crying and screaming, they would quietly close the door and say “i’ll come back”. it finally it dawned on me that she wasn’t mad, she was in pain. so after nearly 2 hours of crying she got some iv meeds and has been asleep for the last 2 hours.
i just turned into a high maintinence mom and talked with the night nurse about continuing the narcotics and keeping her comfortable so she can sleep. so i hope that the night is better than the day. vitals are due soon so we’ll see how that goes.
i’ll be scarlet o hara for a few minutes and think that tomorrow is another day.
posted by chris at
9:38 PM
1 Comments:
Prayers for you and your family.
Prayers for healing, patience, calm amid the chaos and continued good care from the hospital staff. Also for Ruby adjusting to her new life as a sister and sharing some of the spotlight.
with love from Laura, one of the asia adoption crowd.
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