Thursday, May 27, 2010

Long night in store

Just took the dog for a walk and managed to meet up with Ally who has secured a bed in the parents' accommodation. Parents are not even supposed to sleep on a chair on HDU. Although we live close to the hospital, this way mum can be just seconds, not minutes away when P calls. And he probably will do. We remember the first operation vividly. Back then he was far more ill going into surgery, had a 'shunt' and a large itchy bandage (which became home to some 'visitors' until we'd cropped his locks!).
Tonight Ally reports he was quite sad: the medication (steroids and morphine) affects him, doping him without really tiring him; lying on his back, the staples (I.e. Instead of stitches) he's resting his head on are hurting, over and above the wound pain and the discomforts of having various needles and monitors attached; if he relaxes too much an alarm goes off to alert the nurses that his breathing is too shallow; added to this is an active mind, fully expecting further treatments and fully aware of the toll that might take. Finally, he's just not at his best late at night: when over-tired, as for many of us, he easily falls into a rather gloomy state of mind which no amount of talking seems to shift. Rather than feed the gloom, I've had to point this out to him in the past, and insist he listens to something or reads until he feels tired enough to drop off.
Meanwhile, Moli's home. She's still sore and will miss school again tomorrow. But she's happy to have been able to visit Pads, who is, notwithstanding the above, in a better state than post-op August 2008, and she's glad to be in her own bed.
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2 comments:

Susanna said...

i remember when daniel was on paeds hdu and no one had told me I couldn't stay in his room.That made me really sad. In the end they put up a bed for me in the playroom across the hall.

Mike Johnson said...

well - you can sit next to your child but that's it - yes - quite a surprise but hopefully no-one stays in there for too long anyway.