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

Tuesday 9-28-2010

So Robbi is healing well, her drains were removed days ago and here she is about 3 or 4 days ago, no bandages are needed and she is moving around pretty normally. I talked to her this morning and she says its the "same old same old", they are trying to get her Prograf (an immunosuppressant)
level right, right now it's too high, plus monitor her blood pressure since she has turned hypertensive, and watch that coumadin. She will go home on coumadin. She always cuts her legs shaving so I hope she is super careful with that. My mom got her a shower chair, if it goes one set of legs inside the tub and one set of legs outside then I hope they are adjustable cos her tub is one of those clawfoot tubs from way back. Her shower at the hospital is small, floor made of some kind of stone, there's no seat and the entire shower floor slopes towards the drain in the middle so the only safe way to shower in that thing is to either stand on the drain or put a towel down and stand on that. Otherwise, when it gets soapy its treacherous. Wonder how many patients have fallen in those showers?
Her recovery just blows me away. I was about 4 mos out from my transplant when I remember walking to the bathroom and sitting on a chair at the sink and washing my face, hands, etc and thought what a big deal it was. Already, Robbi has taken several showers!!!
Mike is still there with her but is maybe leaving today or tonight to come home. She will be SOLO for a few days, her sister wants to go down Thursday and I will babysit my 2 yr old grandson so she can go. I know sometimes once you are on the road to healing, NOT having anybody with you is kind of a relief, you can sleep and do whatever you want, there's not as much junk in the room, etc.
Once Robbi goes home and is all settled in, I will end this blog because I am having it made into a book for her, as a keepsake. I will have to go through 18 months of posts and correct my typos and spelling errors and would also like to figure out how to make it in reverse order, in other words starting at March 09 and going up till now, so it reads more like a book and isn't backwards. Just correcting my typos and spelling errors will probably take a month!