Hi Friends,
We spent most of today trying to keep up with the never ending supply of nurses, techs, therapists and doctors coming in and out of the room. It really started at 12:09 am, when Rachel requested another dose of pain medicine. Then from 3:10 until 7:10 am we were visited by different personnel all taking 10 to 15 minutes of sleep out of every hour. At 6:10 am, a respiratory technologist was vying with a phlebotomist for their respective 15 minutes of time. Then at 7:35 the doctors arrived for rounds. From that point on, we had Grand Central Station type crowds in here at times. Our day was full of therapy, with wheelchair trips to the gym, wheelchair trips to the big windows looking east from the hospital, wheelchair trips to see Rachel’s digital x-ray, CAT scan and MRI shots, and finally a sponge bath in bed. (For Rachel, not Brit or me.)
4 pm: So the days work is over, Right? Wrong. More nurses and techs show up. We missed two respiratory treatments because someone else was using up the computer and the patient during that time. At 4:30, a nutritionist showed up to talk about Rachel’s diet, and offered to get us a good meal rather than the pre-selected meal chosen by some staff member because Rachel was going to surgery and on a colorless liquid diet all day the day before. So, while she was helping decide the menu for the evening, the plastic surgeon catapults into the room, introducing himself as he came and begins discussing his patients prognosis. As he is talking and the nutritionist is standing beside him awestruck, Rachel’s Occupational therapist walked in, clapped the doctor heartily on the back and began telling him how she wanted Rachel treated to reduce the swelling in her arm and hand. This little side show continued for nearly 15 minutes, but we finally got back to the nutritionist, discussed that she attended UNMC and loved Omaha and that she would get Rachel her special meal tonight.
Forty five minutes later the meal arrived, and we set up Rachel to eat her special order.
Almost immediately, a nurse arrived with blood for the transfusion, the specialist (picc nurse) arrived to clean out the ports so blood could be entered and then later tonight re-extracted. She announced she would be back in and hour and a half when the little pac-mans finished eating the plug from the ports. The nurse and a helping nurse began setting up the port to drip blood, and then moved to the computer to record that work plus enter the new meds they were providing.
Our favorite family in Denver, Jim and Dee Fehr, arrived with our evening meal minutes later. Dee is an Aunt of Leah’s brother-in-law, Robert. She and her husband had never met us, but had heard of our tragedy from Leah’s sister Julie. She offered us a place to stay and absolutely insisted on providing home-cooked meals in the evening. When my brother Jerry and Leah’s parents, Bill and Judith, were here, they stayed at Dee and Jim’s fabulous home. We adore them.
Rachel will need an additional trip under general anesthesia Monday morning at 11:00 am to continue to clean out the sloughing tissue. If all goes well, later in the week she will go in a third time to get a skin graft, and then 7 days later get the dressings off healthy pink skin. As long as the right leg is virtually incapacitated, the surgeon will inflict another bit of pain on her right thigh and remove the grafting skin from there.
Today was also a landmark day for Rachel and I as we capitulated and entered the cell phone world. We joined a family plan with Britanie for a couple reasons. Firstly, we need a means of keeping in touch with all you who wish to hear our sonorous tones, and secondly, we wanted to be able to easily keep in touch with Britanie during the next few arduous months. So for the former, our number here in Denver is (402) 860-8371. Feel free to call anytime after 7:00 am. I am sure we will be up and into our day.
Jay, Renee, Britanie, Zach and Leah’s Dad
Jwhall2@gmail.com
(402) 860-8371
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