In the Hospital

I don’t have internet access at the hospital so I am saving all of my posts to my laptop and then cutting and pasting when I am somewhere that I have access. Today is actually Thursday at 1230 in the afternoon. Kalyn is sleeping. Thank God for small miracles. She was so irritable after surgery that I was thinking maybe Jeff was going to have to be here more than we originally planned. She just cried and whined really loud and refused to stop. Nothing that we did would pacify her. This went on for about 45 minutes before I finally put my foot down. I told her to stop the fussing and to tell me what was wrong. Little did I know that this would work. I guess that she just needed that reality check. I told her that if she wanted to cry because she hurt then that was fine but that she had to tell us so that we could give her medicine to make it stop. She tried to say that nothing hurt but we knew better. A little bit of morphine later and I had my baby girl back. Then she learned that she was not going home like she has in the past with outpatient procedures. This is when she started to acknowledge her pain. She told the nurse “10” when asked if she had pain. It was kind of cute.

They have done a great job of managing her pain. She had some Valium last night to relax her so that she could sleep. She was so tired and just could not sleep. The medicine helped----but she still woke up every hour or so and called out to me “Mom…come here.” I would come there and she would ask a trivial question or something simple. I think that she just wanted to make sure that I was still there. It is very difficult for her because she is in the HALO and in traction. This means that she can’t move her head to see who is there and has so much less control of her life right now.

All of yesterday’s action and medication has apparently caught up with her today because she is sleeping like a rock. I have been able to get out periodically for a breather will all of her resting today. This is good because there is no place on earth as boring as a PICU room. Thank you for all of the positive thoughts and kind words that have been sent our way, they mean a lot and definitely put a smile on my face. I will continue to make notes and post them when I can. Thanks again.