Now back to our regularly scheduled topic…
Last night and today was a day of alternating calm but grumpy sessions and agonizing muscle spasms. The pain-management team has ratcheted up the levels of medication in his system a bit—more Tylenol, higher doses of epidural narcotic, and some valium-like medication in his I.V. for the muscle spasms (I forgot what it was called. I’m tired.)
Consequently, Jon was a bit spacey today, which made entertaining him a bit hit and miss. He wanted TV, videos, DVDs or videogames, but only particular ones. I picked up a handful of videos from the playroom cupboard; only Dora and Blue’s Clues would do. When a hospital staffer couldn’t find the Elmo Nintendo game that he remembered playing last time we were in hospital, Jon was downright snarky. He also developed an unattractive habit of calling “Nurse! Come!” in the same commanding tone he uses for Photon.
This would all be annoying except that much of the day he really is in pain: every time he gets repositioned in bed (every few hours, to prevent bedsores), when he gets his bandages checked, or otherwise gets poked and prodded by hospital personnel. Add to this the muscle spasms, his lack of sleep because of all the noise and taking of vitals every few hours, and you end up with an extremely ticked-off customer. And who can blame him?
(A very peeved aside here—Jon’s hooked up to a machine that monitors his heartrate, breathing rate, oxygen saturation, blood pressure, etc. etc. If Jon’s vitals change significantly (if his 02 level drops, say) it starts to beep loudly. I always assumed that this was something we’d just have to put up with. However, last night the machine was beeping so often that the nurse finally took pity on us and turned off the signal in our room, but still keeping tabs on him from the nursing station. I didn’t realize you could do this—why the heck don’t they do that all the time?!)
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Laura says:
March 22, 2007 at 7:33 pm (UTC 0)
Amusing story: When Jon is with one parent and grumpy, he often starts calling for the absent parent—at least I hope that’s the case! So for much of today he has calling “Dad? Where’s Daddy? Da-ad!” I kept telling him that Daddy was at home until later today. After one particularly obstreperous yell “Dad!!” I snarked back at him “Dad’s not here! He’s at home!” He replied (a bit under his breath) “Well, I can still yell for him…”
paul says:
March 23, 2007 at 9:20 am (UTC 0)
“well i can still yell for him” hilarious, there’s a cartoon there:-)