Andrew.
Waiting.
Hoping.
Dying.
Waiting.
in ICU, out of ICU, home, in ICU, out again, home.
How much longer?
Time goes by.
How much longer?
Will too much time go by?
When will the music change? the beat of life to a distant drum that resounds in the night- thump, thump, thump, slowly it stops. Someone dies, someone gives.
THE CALL comes. Andrew lives. The beat continues as the lungs breathe new life into a tired body. Thump, thump, thump.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Missing the Minutia
It's 2:30 in the morning. I'm eating potato chips and drinking coke. I'll probably be up another hour or two. I become nocturnal when I am in the hospital.
Tomorrow (which is actually today) I will sleep until noonish, awakened occasionally when the nurse changes my IV's, or my breakfast of rice crispies is delivered. I might even open an eye to the cleaning lady mopping my room but for the most part I will be out of it. I have even taken nebulized medicine while in slumberland; just put on the mask and breathe deep.
Staying up most of the night and sleeping during the day helps me. I know I'm not missing much at this hour. If I were home I would be asleep. My family is asleep. The pets are asleep, everyone's out.
During the day I am aware of what I am missing. I miss waking up next to my husband. I miss stepping outside to see what the weather is like, wondering what kind of day it's going to be. I miss the sweet faces of my kids. I miss not being able to go to my Uncle's funeral. I miss watching Austin at soccer practice. I miss our pets. I miss the mundane minutia of life.
So I sleep, to make the day go faster.
Tomorrow. I'm so thankful it will come again. Soon I will be home, the end is in sight.
In the meantime I am grateful for chips, soda, facebook, scrabble on line, the telephone, medicine that makes me feel better, email, blogs, good nurses, good doctors, a cool room, a comfortable bed with three pillows and the hypnotic hum of the IV machine.
Tomorrow (which is actually today) I will sleep until noonish, awakened occasionally when the nurse changes my IV's, or my breakfast of rice crispies is delivered. I might even open an eye to the cleaning lady mopping my room but for the most part I will be out of it. I have even taken nebulized medicine while in slumberland; just put on the mask and breathe deep.
Staying up most of the night and sleeping during the day helps me. I know I'm not missing much at this hour. If I were home I would be asleep. My family is asleep. The pets are asleep, everyone's out.
During the day I am aware of what I am missing. I miss waking up next to my husband. I miss stepping outside to see what the weather is like, wondering what kind of day it's going to be. I miss the sweet faces of my kids. I miss not being able to go to my Uncle's funeral. I miss watching Austin at soccer practice. I miss our pets. I miss the mundane minutia of life.
So I sleep, to make the day go faster.
Tomorrow. I'm so thankful it will come again. Soon I will be home, the end is in sight.
In the meantime I am grateful for chips, soda, facebook, scrabble on line, the telephone, medicine that makes me feel better, email, blogs, good nurses, good doctors, a cool room, a comfortable bed with three pillows and the hypnotic hum of the IV machine.
Monday, September 5, 2011
Life in the ICU.
One of the things I hate most about this disease is the lack of control I sometimes feel. Yes, I admit it, I like to be in control, master of my domain, grab life by the horns and ride into a glorious sunset. Psh....not happening today. Instead of watching fire works with my family from my hospital window, I am headed to ICU. Major disappointment.
I don't like to be in the intensive care unit, it's so, well, intense. It's a place where very sick people go, a place where people go but sometimes they don't come back; for goodness sake it's a place without wifi.
I need to change medications, the one I was using, colistin, was wreaking havoc with my kidneys. So now I will try zosyn, a drug in the penicillin family which I am allergic to.
The process of desensitizing involves introducing the offending drug to the body very slowly. The nurse has to change the IV bags every 15 minutes for 2 hours, then every 30 minutes, each time adding a little more medicine over a six hour period. I am hooked up to a heart monitor with 5 different lines attached to various parts of my body. I also have two IV lines and an oxygen monitor connected. All of this makes going to the bathroom quite the rigamarole.
With questionable kidney function they have a need to collect and measure my pee. So I have to aim and shoot into a small container called a hat while simultaneously holding onto the various chords that are attached to me, this is very discombobulating. Think about an octopus on crack squatting over a can and you get the not so pretty picture.
I don't like to be in the intensive care unit, it's so, well, intense. It's a place where very sick people go, a place where people go but sometimes they don't come back; for goodness sake it's a place without wifi.
I need to change medications, the one I was using, colistin, was wreaking havoc with my kidneys. So now I will try zosyn, a drug in the penicillin family which I am allergic to.
The process of desensitizing involves introducing the offending drug to the body very slowly. The nurse has to change the IV bags every 15 minutes for 2 hours, then every 30 minutes, each time adding a little more medicine over a six hour period. I am hooked up to a heart monitor with 5 different lines attached to various parts of my body. I also have two IV lines and an oxygen monitor connected. All of this makes going to the bathroom quite the rigamarole.
With questionable kidney function they have a need to collect and measure my pee. So I have to aim and shoot into a small container called a hat while simultaneously holding onto the various chords that are attached to me, this is very discombobulating. Think about an octopus on crack squatting over a can and you get the not so pretty picture.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
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