DAY AFTER SURGERY

I just returned from the hospital where I spent the day with Kim. This morning when I got there Brad told me that she had a bad night and didn't sleep much at all after 1:00AM. She was sleeping when I arrived around 9:30AM. She had been "unhooked" from all of her lines that restrained her so much - the IV, the heart monitor, the blood pressure machine, etc. She had still not eaten any food nor drank any liquids except for a sip or two of Sprite. Brad left after I got there and the work started then. The nurse came to change her bed and give us clean linens so she sat in a chair and she and I together gave her a nice warm bath. I lotioned her legs and feet and back and she put on her pajamas rather than a hospital gown. We brushed her hair and she looked so pretty. After her bath, her pain medication and her nice clean bed she settled in for a nap. She slept very soundly because the cleaning woman cleaned the room and mopped all under her bed and she never moved. Her lunch tray had chicken/dumplings, green peas, vegetable soup, roll with butter, cake and iced tea. I insisted that she at least try the soup and obviously it must have been pretty good because she wanted to get up and sit in the chair and try to eat. She ate a lot of the soup, drank some of the tea and devoured the cake. The nurse came then and gave her an antibiotic in the IV tube and gave her a shot of heprin to prevent clots and gave her a pain pill. The preacher at Jerry and Sandra Pigue's church came and had a beautiful prayer with us. After all of that she went back to bed and really did some serious sleeping. The phone rang several times and she didn't even budge. I know that she was sleeping because, with her curious nature, she would have wanted to know who was calling and she didn't ask. She can talk above a whisper now - just barely - but you can understand her. She got up and with a walker and the nurse beside her she did a pretty good walk in the hallway. Patrick came to see her after that and after he left Brad came back. Then the Madison CofC preacher came and visited for a few minutes and had a prayer. I left to come home around 3:30PM and Brad was there to be with her. Corinne is going to stay tonight and Brad will go home. They mentioned to her that she might go home tomorrow and I hope that she doesn't because she really needs to be in the hospital. With insurance and hospitals as they are now I think they will send her home as soon as possible. They had planned to move her to a room that was not so monitored but there was no room available so that makes me think that they need the space whether she wants to leave or not. She has been a super good patient on this journey and I am so proud of her. With all of the ailments that she has already this has really been a challenge to her and I think she has met it with grace and poise.