Rough Night

Sleep is not easy in a hospital, although our wonderful nurse Lorena on PM shift gave Grace an IV dose of pain meds since she has been vomiting. Gracie slept really great until her roommate woke up in a panic about using the bathroom. Of course, this gave Grace the idea of needing to go as well. Her IV is pushing a lot of fluids. It is an effort to unhook, unplug, and untangle her tubes and wires so Gracie panics a bit about getting to the bathroom in time. Wow, this is reminiscent of NICU.

The night nurse Alyssa is an absolute sweetheart too. When Grace woke up again at 5 am, we found that her wound gauze was strung about the bed. So, the nurse came again and put some more in. Sorry if this grosses anyone out, who reads this. I'm glad to see that it isn't draining as much. I still haven't seen her incision yet since it is buried underneath all that gauze.

Dr. Martin will be here soon enough to do rounds. I suppose we'll get the interns first though.

Grace's sensory issues have come roaring out of her. She detests the IV in her left hand, and the pulse oximeter on her thumb. It makes me giggle when I see her making the nurses switch the pulse ox to different fingers. She wants to control something, anything so the pulse ox is her object of choice. Go Gracie! Mama remembers a little too well how hospital life feels. If anyone is wondering, my urge to bolt is subsiding. Perhaps it is because we will be leaving here today? I hope so. It was a challenge to conceal my anxiety, but I think I succeeded.

So, Gracie received another dose of pain meds in her IV at 5:30am. It had been since 10pm the night before. She was writhing in pain, and I made a bee line for the nurse to get the meds administered. It was a tense 1/2 hour, but she finally drifted off to sleep again. I hope the docs don't show up too soon. She needs to sleep. Charlie and I switched places. He is on the cot, and I'm in the chair now.