Don't touch... but you can press the giant red button to exit

Last night was fairly calm besides the fire alarm going off when I was in Dad’s room. I was getting excited and ready to jump into action by pushing beds around, but turns out it was just someone on the psychiatric unit (I think that’s where Chris really should work).  The word from the Mr. Clean (night nurse) was that I should be glad I wasn’t in the room the entire night because of his stomach activity. Although it sounds gross and probably shouldn’t be posted, this is a good thing and we’re happy they’re starting to work   He had a few periods of restlessness throughout the night and this morning when I came in, but overall he was pretty relaxed. The waiting room last night reminded me more of a nursing home reunion than a waiting room. At one point I think there were more people sitting in wheelchair than there were chairs. I’m disappointed nothing overly interesting has happened in the past few days. It’s been fairly quiet throughout the night. And no one is snoring extremely loud, it’s messing up my sleeping habits, I was getting used to the white noise and bright lights.

As I make my way into the room this morning, a nurse who I thought was a model (She told me to put that here) introduced herself (which hasn’t happened in awhile) and immediately made a good first impression (which is huge in my book). Soon after our introduction a smiley nurse comes in, looks at me and ask “Are you the blog writer?” I was thrown back and scared that I have never seen her in the ICU and she’s aware of my blog. I then ask her, how many nurses up here know about the blog? The responds with a simple smile and reports “a few.”  She then goes on to tell me she doesn’t want to make it into the blog, which makes me immediately perk up and pay attention for things so that I can write about her. I told her it’s completely up to her and the care she gives that will determine if she’ll make a blog debut.

I was on edge for awhile thinking of all those who I don’t know that read or follow this thing, but then the more I thought about it I don’t think there is anything I wouldn’t tell them if they were in here right now. If you read it and know me, you’ll know I like to make things enjoyable and light hearted in rough times. It makes it easier for everyone involved to have a laugh here or there. Of course I don’t like confrontation, so I was nervous about those days where I reported we’ve have nurses that we haven’t enjoyed, but no one has been able to compare to my favorite nurse yet, we’ve just been spoiled by her I guess.

I’m hoping today turns out to be a good one, it started off great when I wake up to see one of our ICU families who’ve been here for about week (they don’t stay, so they’re not as fun) sitting across the room. As I start to set up, she walks over to me and tells me her daughter is getting coffee and she knew I’d be here so she’s was wondering if I wanted any. Unfortunately I’m not much of a coffee drinker but I thanked them anyways. 5-10 minutes later I am then greeted by a glass of milk and doughnuts. What a way to start the morning! Let’s hope the trend continues the rest of the day.

It’s always entertaining sitting in the room and watching people leave the unit. Dad’s room is right by the unit and there is a red exit button about the size of a half dollar with a large 6 inch square sign that says “press to exit.” It’s humorous to see the new families come in and wait for the door to magically open by themselves and then they look around in confusion and someone to magically open it. I knew today was going to be a fun day when the smiley nurse was trying to push open the doors without pressing the button. As she was struggling and wondering why they were locked, I get up smile at her and say “I got ya covered.”  Of course this has all happened in the first couple of hours and we still have then entire day ahead of us to look forward to.

The doctors made their rounds this morning and the Intensivist starts to play around with the IV’s and the vent and turning them down. I notice he turns the fentanyl drip completely off (he does have two heavy dose patches though). The nurse came in shortly after he left and as I told her I think he turned it off, she clearly wasn’t too happy he turned it completely off (which made me like her more). He’s been on volume twice today and has tolerated it fairly well. When he gets worked up, he produces a fair amount of secretions which makes it hard to breath. The doctor has changed some meds and he seems to be tolerating it well.

Another therapist came in today but the nurse quickly sent him away. Dad has been active enough recently and he really doesn’t need much therapy; however they’re still coming anyways. When they come we usually have finally gotten him to calm down and we don’t want to disturb him or agitate him again. Even the nurses are careful with moving him or bugging him when giving meds. I’ve started to get into the habit of being very careful and quiet.

Chris went to go donate blood Friday and it usually takes 3-5 days for them to do whatever they need to and send it back, so they can give it to dad if needed. His blood levels were a little low today and they were too thin, so he’s getting 2 units of blood and plasma. The plasma looked like a butterscotch milk shake; it was kind of weird to look at. Unfortunately the blood that Chris donated wasn’t ready yet.  

Today marks day number 21 (3 weeks for those of you who can’t do the math). It’s been a fairly good Sunday with minimal restlessness. He’s still pretty sedated and not responding, but we’re working our way down (slowly). Time has seemed to fly by most of the time, it seems as if I don’t have much time to do anything, which is kind of hard to believe. I don’t really do anything besides sit or wrestle with pops. I was actually able to sit in the room today and watch Indians game with dad (I actually watched it on my computer with headphones in the room). It brought back some pretty good memories of all the games we’ve watch over the years. I’m looking forward to the day when we’re going to be able to do those things again. I think I’m going to get the cheap high seats, just so he’ll have to walk to the very top and get a little exercise for the workouts I’ve had to endure the past few days.