After a long night we need to go to Children’s Primary Hospital to have her CT scan. An ambulance arrives at around 10:00am to transport us. They gave Olivia a valium to help with her anxiety. She is still panicked at the thought of going back on that transport bed… I think that she believes she will go back in surgery. I try to explain that mommy won’t leave her I will be with her the whole time. But with the language barrier it is hard for her to understand. She has to hold my hand all the way, and she panics each time I have to let the bed go through the door first, since we can’t fit together. The two ambulance drivers are both females and are really great. When we get to the hospital they want us to go to out-patient check in. Olivia would have freaked out if I left her for a few minutes. So they brought her bed all the way to the patient check-out so she could stay by me. Then we head to the CT scan. She cries when we put her on the cat scan table, I don’t think it is pain, as much as it is fear. We try to described that it is just pictures, no “owies”. She is happy to leave. We head back to the hospital, she is glad to be back in her room. Though she does constantly ask to go home. I think she believes that everything will be back to normal if we go home. She begins to get a fever of 101-102. This can be from not moving and the lungs need to get expanded as much as possible. They have a little machine that Olivia likes to blow in, and they also use bubbles which she LOVES. I thought this was such a clever way to get them to exercise their lungs, yet they believe they are just playing.
Olivia seems suspicious of everything… if I try to feed her something, she doesn’t want it. She hasn’t really eaten since before the operation.
She still seems to be in pain so the nurse decides to try an oral pain medicine. Olivia chews the perciced with the promise of a cola (which she loves, but never gets at home). She takes it like a champ. 15 or so minutes later she happily says “owie all gone”. She is so happy about being pain free she keeps saying, with excitement”, “owie all gone”, over and over.. almost to the point it is annoying… laugh Which makes me really believe that she has been in pain this whole time despite the epidural. Which I feel really bad about. But non of us could really tell if she was in pain. She was constantly getting what they call BOLST (or surge of pain medicine) in her epidural for pain, but it never seemed to take it all away. (not to mention it was on a steady drip as well). Olivia is finally back to her happy self laughing and playing. She eats a ton, which is great as she hasn’t eaten since before her surgery.
My mom and Eleana (the translator) come to allow me to go home and shower and see our other children, get them ready for bed and tuck them in, then head back to the hospital.
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