Thursday, January 27, 2011

The hospital experience

At times, it seems as though poor William is just constantly assaulted non-stop when in-patient.  There's vitals checks every 4 hours (around the clock), med administrations, visits from nurses, nursing shift changes, exams by medical students...pokes from residents...full exams by specialists....not to mention the long-awaited visits from his attending doctors.  Especially as in William's case with so many specialists on his team, our room needs a revolving doorway.  On top of all that, we still have his general daily and weekly care needs, like dressing changes.  Even when we are in-patient, I still do William's dressing changes.  He is much more comfortable with our system and frankly, the control freak I am....I am more comfortable with the arrangement too.  The nurses assist as the ""distractor/hand control role."

William's expression says it all here after a central line dressing change...

William has some nurses who he's established a special bond with.  Many staff members stop in even when they are not assigned to William for a particular shift, just to check-in, say hi....and in hopes of getting a William smile.


Another hospital band to add to the collection.


All through his dressing change, I kept William content by telling him he was going to have a tubby.  This was the afternoon that his central line clotted off.  Although it was an incredibly scary experience to think we did not have IV access for all his critical fluids and medications (and the looming threat of needing a peripheral IV)....I have to admit it was nice to have a brief break from being attached to a 4 1/2 foot IV line attached to a big, bulky, obnoxious IV pole. 

Of course, that night I also forgot that William had just undergone bilateral bone marrow aspirations in the fronts of his hip bones.  He had dressings over them, which could not get wet for 48 hours.  Thankfully, our foot stool made the perfect seat for little man to sit on and get in some water play and fun with bubbles.

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