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| Not quite awake yet |
After we talked to the Dr we were led to the waiting room up on ICU. You have to pick up a phone to be buzzed into the ICU unit. In the waiting room you can see patients being bought onto the floor. They said we would see her go by and then it would be another 40 minutes or so. We did see her go by, I ran to the window closest to her. She was still intubated, which I hated seeing. So dumb, I'm a nurse. But seeing all of this on my girl just feels different. Finally we were allowed to go into the room. She was no longer intubated when we saw her. She had two IV ports in both wrists, a central line in her neck, and an art line in her left wrist monitoring her blood pressure. Oxygen on, pulse oximeter measuring her oxygen, and pads on her chest measuring how many respiration's she was having. This was became our issue. Breathing deeply hurts.
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| Art line and IV |
Kate did kind of wake up, enough to us that she hurts. Excruciating pain, that is how she later described it. It took a few minutes to get the narcotic from the pharmacy for her PCA so we were finally able to give her some IV morphine. It helped somewhat, but I have to say those first 24 hours were rough. There is absolutely NOTHING worse than seeing your child in pain and not being able to take it away. The second night I thought she was asleep, I was leaning over her, holding her hand and I said out loud that I would trade her this misery if I could. She never opened her eyes, but she said that wouldn't be fair and she wouldn't want that. I told her I would still do it, I love you so much. She just squeezed my hand.
There is one chair in the room that kinda lays down like a bed. It wasn't too bad honestly. ICU is full of machines going off all night. Here is where being partly deaf works in my favor. I tell Kate to tell the nurse to get me if she needs me and I simply turn over. Sounds gone. The biggest bummer was that to use a restroom I had to leave the ICU completely, which means having someone beep you in and out. One time I was coming back into the ICU, I pick up the phone to say I'm the mom of this patient, yada yada, and the lady, who I can see through the glass on the door, looks at me, says her name and then follows up with "I see you." The door opens and in I walk. As I am nearing her desk it dawns on me that someone else had opened the door with their badge, and the lady hadn't said "I see you," she had said ICU. I'm half embarrassed and half laughing at my stupid, tired self when I reach her desk. I apologized for just walking in and told her of my confusion. She was laughing at my stupidity as well by time I walked away. Marci on little sleep is not a pretty thing.
Every time it was time for a medication or pulling out her drain, Kate would ask if it involved needles. This poor girl had tubes in both arms and her neck. But as long as we said no needles involved, she was fine.
There is one chair in the room that kinda lays down like a bed. It wasn't too bad honestly. ICU is full of machines going off all night. Here is where being partly deaf works in my favor. I tell Kate to tell the nurse to get me if she needs me and I simply turn over. Sounds gone. The biggest bummer was that to use a restroom I had to leave the ICU completely, which means having someone beep you in and out. One time I was coming back into the ICU, I pick up the phone to say I'm the mom of this patient, yada yada, and the lady, who I can see through the glass on the door, looks at me, says her name and then follows up with "I see you." The door opens and in I walk. As I am nearing her desk it dawns on me that someone else had opened the door with their badge, and the lady hadn't said "I see you," she had said ICU. I'm half embarrassed and half laughing at my stupid, tired self when I reach her desk. I apologized for just walking in and told her of my confusion. She was laughing at my stupidity as well by time I walked away. Marci on little sleep is not a pretty thing.
Every time it was time for a medication or pulling out her drain, Kate would ask if it involved needles. This poor girl had tubes in both arms and her neck. But as long as we said no needles involved, she was fine.
No one deserves what she has gone through, but I sometimes get so angry that such a kind hearted human being is being put this. Yes, I know, maybe that's why its her or maybe it makes her the kind person she is. But for right now, I want to be mad about it.
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| Side view |
X-rays post-op.
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| All straight now |
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