Wednesday, September 29, 2010 (plus old picture from 9-17-2010)

Remembered this pic and hoped it would come out better here than it does on my camera. These weren't even ALL the bags she had hanging, they had taken a few off, but I have never seen so many bags of "stuff" hanging on an IV pole. Of course, I am not an ICU nurse either so it may be not unusual. This picture was taken by me just as they were getting ready to take Robbi down for her second surgery to remove the bleeders and the hematoma on her liver.
Something else I just remembered, you saw the pic of her right arm taped to the arm board, tubes and syringes attached to ports, for some reason when the nurse (right after surgery) asked her which hand she wanted the pain control button (PCA) in, she indicated her right hand.
I wondered bow she was going to get her fingers working for that PCA with all those IV's and everything sticking out of her right arm.
When I went in at 3am to see her one more time before I tried to sleep, she was grimacing so I told her to push her pain control button (PCA button=Patient Controlled Analgesia) but the poor thing, it had slipped from her hand, both of which were tied down so she wouldn't pull out the breathing tube, so I put it back in her hand. Her thumb barely moved and I had to kind of guide it to the recessed spot where she was supposed to push. She tried to push it but didn't even have the strength to push it down. So I did what any mother would do, I pushed it for her. Then I did what any idiot would do, when her nurse came in I told her I did it. She didn't rip me a new one but told me in no uncertain terms I was NOT to push that button for her. (Yeah right, you know?)When her next Nurse came on, Rita, I told her I had to help Robbi out with the button because she couldn't push it hard enough, and told her the previous nurse had a fit when she found out I actually pushed it for her, and Rita said, "Honey, if you need to push that button for your daughter, you just go ahead and push it!" :)
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So the news for WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2010 is-
Robbi said her surgeon came in this morning and said she is definitely going to be discharged on Friday morning. I am hoping they get that teaching stated soon, it's a lot of information for her to absorb, especially when she is excited about getting home and back to her life and therefore a little distracted, I would imagine. Shes all alone right now so she should have had some "quiet time" to start reading some of the stuff they left her a few days ago, before she was really feeling up to it.

Robbi's Mom