This morning, I woke up feeling a little disjointed. As many of you will know, I’m staying with my Dad at the moment, so I can be close to Heather (who is in hospital some ten minutes away). This means I haven’t been to work in two weeks and I haven’t been home since Bank Holiday Monday (and even that was a semi-flying visit). I wonder how long it would be before we can start to get back to normal again. I know this is a way to go yet.
As it’s the weekend, there aren’t any clinics running so parking isn’t a problem if you go into the hospital later in the day. I arrived just after 10am. Shaly was on duty once again and I found Heather sitting in a lower chair than she had yesterday. She had been up since 9am and I was pleased to hear from Shaly that once she has become less drowsy, Heather can have her trachy tube removed. That’s great, as Heather doesn’t like having anything around her neck at the best of times.
During the morning, I talked to her and began to make some real contact with her. I helped her have some water, but it didn’t taste very nice judging by the expression on her face. I think I’ll pour some Buxton water into a cup tomorrow if she fancies a drink and see how she likes that. She is getting more animated every day and you have to watch that she doesn’t pull at her nasal tube and monitor connections. I can understand that these things aren’t normal to her, but she seems to stop when you tell her so and why they are there.
The problem with her chair is that she keeps sliding down in it and she doesn’t have the upper body strength yet to help herself back up like you or I can. I asked for her to be helped up, but another patient needed the help of the staff, so Heather was fairly uncomfortable for about half an hour. I didn’t like seeing her distressed and got a little annoyed that it took so long to sort out. I know they are short staffed today, but even so.
Just as they were about to hoist her back into a comfortable position, Heather’s Mum and Dad arrived. I took the opportunity to take a loo break while they looked after her.
During their visit, various attempts were made to communicate with her and I’m pleased to say many of them were successful. Her Dad asked her to smile at him and she did it! I haven’t seen a smile on her face for some days now and it was quite moving to witness. She can only really communicate with nods of the head at the moment, as she is still very drowsy. Doing something as complicated as talking is a little beyond her right now. We were warned that it would take some time for her to become fully awake, but at least we now have two-way communication with her so she can begin to tell us how she is feeling.
Heather’s Mum and I went to the restaurant for some lunch and came back at about 2pm to find that Heather had been put back into bed (apparently, she had asked to go back herself!). The efforts of being partially awake for five hours had taken its toll and she was fast asleep and pretty much remained so for the rest of the afternoon. It turned out that all the patients in ITU had been in chairs that morning, but had all now been returned to bed.
Heather’s parents left at 2:45pm just as my Mum arrived. All seem very pleased with today’s progress.
At 3:40pm, Liz the physio came to move Heather about and, although it was OK for us to stay, we decided to go to the waiting area. I was feeling quite exhausted and try to get a few winks, but couldn’t quite manage it. Mum left at just after 4pm as she had some things to do.
I returned to the room and sat in the chair that Heather was sitting in earlier that day. I have to admit, it was very comfortable and I was so exhausted that I managed to get a good twenty minutes sleep. I simply put my head back, turned to face Heather so I can see her, put my hand on top of hers and drifted off.
I decided to leave at 5pm, as Heather was still fast asleep and showed no signs of stirring. In fact for once, none of her alarms were going off; she wasn’t being disturbed by noise, coughing or being uncomfortable. Everything was very peaceful, so I said goodnight and let her continue with her rest.
Let’s hope for more progress tomorrow. So far, it’s looking very promising. She is doing so well now and I’m so proud of her.
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