\nWoke up to Hannah sitting up in bed (supported by her lovely nurse, Kate) , having a big cough and struggling to shift the ‘frog in her throat’.\u00a0 She had vomited a little but was fine – had a good drink.
\nWas much stronger getting herself into sitting up position and leaning forward. Only needed minimal support.
\nBack to sleep with oxygen face mask on in addition to oxygen nasal prongs.\u00a0 O2 Sats at 100% but still taking rapid, shallow breaths.<\/p>\n
6.15am<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Woke again – similar to the 4am wake-up but don’t think Hannah was sick this time.<\/p>\n 7.15am<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n As we were in an HDU room (High Dependency Unit), opposite the nurse’s station, I woke up to many loud talking voices as the day shift started to arrive and handovers were starting to take place.\u00a0 Time to think about getting up and getting my camp bed folded up before 8am.<\/p>\n I felt very lucky and relieved – Hannah had had a good night.\u00a0 No major incidents or setbacks overnight, which is always a worry, but especially on the first night back on the ward.<\/p>\n Doctors were generally happy with Hannah’s progress.\u00a0 They spent some considerable time debating which (if any) diuretics to give – her kidney function had improved but still wasn’t quite right, she was slightly ‘positive’ on her fluid balance but her bloods were still ‘dry’.\u00a0 It’s all about finding the right balance until her body works properly again!<\/p>\n Her last chest x-ray (which had been looked at by the ICU doctors and also by the on-call doctor on the ward during the night as I was a bit concerned about a weird thing happening in her chest when she breathes*<\/strong> and been declared clear every time!) showed some consolidation in the bottom of her lungs, which may indicate an infection, as well as a slight pneumothorax at the top of her chest.\u00a0 The senior doctor therefore prescribed antibiotics.<\/p>\n They took her off the continuous (and ‘clicker’)morphine altogether and prescribed Oramorph (oral morphine) to be taken as needed.<\/p>\n The doctors also ordered an ECG <\/a>and, provided everything was fine, they would then pull out the pacing wires<\/a>.\u00a0 Today was also earmarked for changing the wound dressing.<\/p>\n I asked about the weird thing on Hannah’s chest* but the doctor seemed unperturbed.\u00a0 He kind of mumbled that it might be linked to the pneumothorax but was not particularly interested.<\/p>\n I helped the nurse give Hannah a bed bath and get her to stand on the scales to be weighed (important for fluid balance and for medication prescription), then onto a comfy armchair to sit upright properly for breakfast.\u00a0 Although she didn’t eat her full bowl of Coco Pops, she devoured a good amount with gusto!\u00a0 She couldn’t shovel them into her mouth fast enough!<\/p>\n We also got Hannah into her PJ tops so she wouldn’t just sit there in her bra & knickers.<\/p>\n Hannah was due to be moved out of HDU onto the main ward.\u00a0 Because of her age and thanks to room availability, she was given a completely private room with en-suite bathroom (the previous one in HDU was almost private – 2 rooms separated by a wall and an open doorway\/arch, sharing one bathroom and requiring anyone wanting access to the 2nd room to walk through Hannah’s).\u00a0 There are advantages to being admitted on the ward in a children’s hospital as a very grown-up teenager!<\/p>\n I suggested to the nurses that we could get Hannah to WALK from her old room to her new one – the physio had told me, after all, the day before that she wanted Hannah to do deep breathing exercises ever hour or so and that she wanted her sitting that day and walking the next.<\/p>\n We got all the drips etc, got her onto a portable oxygen tank and off we went.\u00a0 Hannah leant on me and walked slowly, but she wasn’t in pain, she didn’t pass out and she didn’t lean all her weight on me, either.\u00a0 She did it!\u00a0 And I got a proper cuddle out of it before we put her into bed. That was wonderful \ud83d\ude42<\/strong> I miss my babychick cuddles and I know she misses them, too.\u00a0 After that, she was wiped out and went straight to sleep in her new room.<\/p>\n She then had a half dose of Oramorph so she’d be well-sedated to have her pacing wires out and dressing changed.\u00a0 She was so zonked she never noticed any of it!!\u00a0 That was her out cold for a few hours.\u00a0 She missed her lunch and just slept and slept.<\/p>\n My mum arrived and Hannah slept through it.\u00a0 Simon’s aunt and uncle came to visit and the Physiotherapist came shortly after that.\u00a0 That certainly woke Hannah up!!<\/p>\n She had to do breathing exercises<\/a> using an incentive spirometer<\/a> and she really didn’t want to.\u00a0 She kept shaking her head ‘no’ and turning away but the Physio was very good.\u00a0 He told her ‘no’ wasn’t in his vocabulary and that one day she may be a cardio-thoracic surgeon and boss him around but that for now, he’s the boss! I liked him.\u00a0 He got Hannah to do a lot!\u00a0 He couldn’t get her to walk because she was so drowsy from the Oramorph in the morning that she could have fallen over, but he really worked on her sitting posture and also got her to do some basic leg-raising exercises just to get her mobile.\u00a0 He then positioned her really well in bed so she’d be very upright and not slide down the bed.\u00a0 She slept for ages again after that.\u00a0 Wiped out!<\/p>\n When Simon’s mum and Charlie arrived, Hannah was having a heart scan.\u00a0 Everything fine, but that woke her up – she slept through most of it but when they had to press quite hard near the top of her wound, she was in quite a bit of pain.\u00a0 I explained to the doctors I didn’t want her to suffer but that she also needs to get better and can’t do that if she’s constantly sleeping because of the morphine.\u00a0 They prescribed an anti-inflammatory (Diclofenac) to take in addition to Paracetamol for pain relief.\u00a0 Let’s hope it does enough – she’s been doing great so far with minimal pain, but she probably still has lots of morphine in her system.<\/p>\n The nurse asked the doctor again about the weird thing on Hannah’s chest*<\/p>\n The nurse was in fact quite fascinated by it.\u00a0 The doctor had another look, felt around her collarbones for crackles indicating that she has a pneumothorax and said the weird thing* was probably caused by that.\u00a0 The nurse got me to feel the ‘crackles’ from the pneumothorax.\u00a0 It feels weird…lots of snap, crackle and pop to the touch…or a bit like bubbles in sparkling water.\u00a0 We have our very own human bubble-wrap!! heehee\u00a0 The pneumothorax should dissipate by itself within a couple of days and hopefully the weird thing* will go with it.<\/p>\n I then got Hannah to do her breathing exercises again (she needs to do 10 repetitions every hour when she’s awake) and she already did better than she had done previously.\u00a0 I then walked her (with Charlie’s help) to the toilet for another wee at long last.\u00a0 The walk did her good!\u00a0 We got her into an armchair to eat her dinner – she had a bit of chicken curry, some Quavers and a bit of chocolate sponge cake with custard.<\/p>\nWard rounds<\/h4>\n
Bath and breakfast<\/h4>\n
The day<\/h4>\n
![\"Recovery](\"http:\/\/www.happiness-speaker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/2014-08-15-17.56.32-1024x576.jpg\")
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