When you have a baby, they tell you to sleep when the baby sleeps. And when that baby–who is now 12 years old and doesn’t remotely want you to refer to her as a baby anymore– is in the hospital for major spine surgery, you sleep when she sleeps. Especially after they give her valium, you’ve been awake for 18 or 20 hours, and you know she shouldn’t have muscle spasms or breakthrough pain for a couple hours at least.
There’s actually blessedly little to write about the night on the regular unit. We put some movies on, not that she actually watched much of any of them. She slept fairly decent stretches, and I dozed when I could, though it’s hard to trust that all the numbers and graphs on the monitors will remain good if I shut my eyes or turn away from them. She had to be turned every two hours, which she hates, but it has to be done. At one point, she was uncomfortable, so she chose a firefly/star on the ceiling and followed it to keep herself focused away from the pain. She’s begun drinking more Gatorade, though she hasn’t eaten anything. At 4am she could have had another dose of valium, but she chose to save it for the next turn at 6am. Her temperature is a slightly elevated 99.1 to 99.2, but it isn’t at a concerning level. She’s been working on the incentive spirometer, which is a gadget that gives her feedback on how deep a breath she takes in and also helps stave off fluid in the lungs. She’s not taking incredibly deep breaths at this point, because it hurts to breathe, but doing this several times a day will help. She wanted to dictate a blog entry to me, but she got tired, so it will wait. Rounds started at 4:30. Next day is here.
