Hannah’s recovery from heart surgery | Day 8

A bit of a non-day…

…but on the plus side, more gifts for Hannah to get excited about!

9am

Hannah has had another good night. She looks great! Cheeky tyke woke me up a couple of times by jiggling my toes, to tell me I was snoring too loudly. Charming! 😉

My back is in spasm from sleeping on the fold-up bed…have come back to parents’ accommodation to get washed and dressed, as usual, but might have a bath in the hope it relaxes my back.

Plan for today is x-ray to see if Hannah’s Pneumothorax is shrinking, then take it from there.

Continuing with breathing exercises with the ‘Incentive Spirometer’ (no improvement in those in last 24 hours) and lots of walking, especially stairs so she gets out of breath and naturally takes deep breaths to compensate.

Mid-day
Hannah’s had a headache for a while. She’s had paracetamol but it doesn’t seem to help. I’m beginning to think it could be one of her migraines…The room has been darkened as much as possible (which isn’t much at all) and she now has an in-flight eye mask on and is snuggled into bed to try and sleep it off.  Maggie, her nurse, said if it doesn’t clear she’ll ask Anthony, the Registrar, if he can prescribe her anything else.

Oh, also her x-ray has been reviewed.  The Pneumothorax may have shrunk, but it’s so small it’s difficult to tell the difference.  To me, though, she’s not looking like she’s improved since yesterday.  She’s not managed to get to her highest level on the Incentive Spirometer at all today or yesterday, so actually her breathing volume is decreasing, not increasing or even staying the same.

We’ll just have to see what happens over time – there’ll be another x-ray either tomorrow or the day after that and we’ll see what’s what.

Oooh, almost forgot!  Yesterday, Hannah received a fantastic gift from my former business partner, Lisa, and her partner & children; a fabulous ‘bouquet’ of Hannah’s favourite chocolates – Lindor by Lindt! She was over the moon 🙂

Today,  she received another surprise.  A fabulous hamper from her friends from her musical theatre group: it contained a gorgeous soft teddy bear, a balloon and lots of biscuits & chocolates in a gorgeous box!

Hannah’s been doing very well on the presents front!  She also got various other chocolates (including a box of Lindt Lindor chocolates from Nanny – Simon’s mum) and Simon’s work colleagues sent her a fab card and an Amazon gift voucher!

Comedy moment of the day

Over lunch, Simon made some kind of vaguely humorous comment and Hannah hadn’t heart it properly – so when she asked what he’d said, I said “It’s ok, he’s only trying to be funny” and Hannah replied, quick as a flash, as always:

“He keeps doing that.  I don’t know where I get my funniness from!”

4.30pm

Hannah woke up for a late lunch earlier but her headache wasn’t shifting.  She was adamant it was a headache and not a migraine.  We made her do her breathing exercises and took her for a walk around the hospital again, this time also having a quick walk around the lovely hospital garden.  It was drizzling but at least it was a bit of fresh air for Hannah for a few minutes.  She seemed slightly more lively for doing that, but she’s still not quite herself today 🙁 We got back and Maggie gave her some Ibuprofen to help with the lingering headache, and just as she had gone to bed to try and sleep some more, Simon’s mum, our niece and Charlie arrived.

We left Hannah to sleep and went and sat in the hospital conservatory for a bit, then came back and Hannah was still asleep.  During this time, they brought in another teenager (thank goodness a teenager and not a screaming baby, at least) from intensive care, into the HDU (High Dependency Unit) bed-space in the other half of this weird two-rooms-in-one that Hannah is in.

I’ve never understood why nurses (not all of them, but many!) have this need to be really, really loud all the time, when after all you’re in a hospital and there are bound to be people sleeping/resting at any given time!  They brought this girl in and have been talking at full volume ever since (I mean, seriously, aside from not disturbing other patients, what about privacy of the patient they’re looking after/talking to/talking about??).  They also immediately decided it was too dark (admittedly, that front half of this two-rooms-in-one room is very dark as it has no windows) and turned on the lights on full blast – bright artificial lights, with a massive strip-light right above Hannah’s bed! I’ve tried putting an eye mask over her eyes but as I don’t want to disturb her by putting it on her properly, she keeps moving and it falls off.  So  far, she seems to be managing to sleep through the noise and the lights, but she’s tossing & turning a lot.

Charlie, Simon’s mum and our niece left a short while ago – no point in them staying while Hannah’s asleep.  It was a shame that Charlie couldn’t say goodbye to Hannah properly (she did give her a kiss) as we’ll be taking Charlie back home (setting off early in the morning) tomorrow to get her GCSE results from school and then leaving her with her friend Sophie for a few days.

I’m nervous about leaving Hannah tomorrow but Charlie needs us there – it’s a big deal to get her GCSE results and Hannah is stable at the moment.  I just hope she brightens up by then as she is so listless and sleepy today 🙁  I also hope the headache is just that and has nothing to do with the heart surgery or the medication she’s on.  After all the months of continuous migraine she had and finally getting it sorted out, I really hope this operation hasn’t brought it all back on.

5pm

Maggie, the nurse, has just been back and done Hannah’s observations.  She’s also done a quick neuro check…pupil dilation and responsiveness (shining light into Hannah’s eyes), checking she can push her away with her hands and squeeze her hands.  She asked her about pain.  Excluding the headache, she’s fine, but the headache rates on a 6 or a 7.  Although Hannah has been able to respond, she’s basically still sleeping through everything, even the screaming  teenager in the other bay (Maggie said that teenager was only having her cannula flushed and she screamed like someone was trying to murder her…so much for not having a screaming baby next to Hannah trying to sleep off her headache! I know it’s not very tolerant of me and maybe we’ve just been spoilt, but Hannah and Charlie have always been so good through everything they’ve gone through in hospital over the years and even when they’ve been in real pain, they’ve never screamed & shouted ‘No, No, No’ refusing to have treatment administered).

Maggie is going to speak to the doctor and mention Hannah’s still in pain.  I’ve told her that at home Hannah has Imigran 10mg nasal spray and that has sorted out the migraine for her before.  The way she is sleepy/drowsy seems more like a migraine than a headache.  And Maggie turned off the lights on the way out! Let’s hope nobody turns them back on.

6.40pm

It’s horrible seeing her suffering and being so lethargic, especially after everything she’s been through, to then get a nasty migraine as well! 

I’m going to have to fend off people wanting to give her morphine (Oramorph)…she is adamant (and has said so again this afternoon!) that she doesn’t want it as she hated how she felt when she had it in the first few days.

The doctor has just been and said that he doesn’t think there’s anything to worry about neurologically as she’s been responsive when awake, but he’ll examine her when she wakes up. He’s asked the nurse to keep on top of alternating Paracetamol and Ibuprofen and he’s actually said that, for some people, Morphine makes migraines worse.

I’ve reiterated she really doesn’t want Morphine and that, in the past, one spray of Imigran 10mg nasal spray has worked, which she has at home on prescription.  He said that he may not be able to get hold of that for her tonight but if she’s still bad tomorrow they’ll try and get it for her.  Aaarrrrgghhhh!

7pm

The plan was for Simon and I to drive to Doncaster for Charlie’s GCSE results early tomorrow morning (Simon’s mum to spend the day with Hannah), leave Charlie up there to stay at a friend’s house for a few days and for us to come back in the afternoon. If Hannah’s no better tomorrow, only one of us will go to Doncaster.

9.15pm

Earlier, Hannah managed to wake up enough to take her Aspirin, answer questions about how she feels (head still hurts 7/10, no other pain, doesn’t feel sick, no dizziness, really tired), and get changed into her pyjamas.

She then went straight back to sleep, but it’s not a deep sleep. She tosses and turns a lot and can hear and respond to things we say.

I told her I was going back to parents’ accommodation and that Daddy would stay with her tonight. I reminded her that if she’s well enough tomorrow, Daddy and I will be going with Charlie for her GCSE results and Nanny and Lauren will come and stay with her, but if she’s not well enough only one of us will go. I told her I may therefore not see her tomorrow morning and gave her a kiss and cuddle and told her I love her to bits. As usual she said “I love you” and I replied “I love you more”.

Emotional moment of the day:

After she’d told me a few times that I was squashing her, even in her drowsy sleepy painful state, she lifted her arm and put it around me for a proper hug.

Then, as I was saying goodnight to Simon, her hand appeared above the sheet and her fingers sleepily wiggled goodnight. Awwwwwww

Which then led to another funny moment of the day:

Simon said, just above a whisper, loud enough for Hannah to hear: “That’s CUTE”

Hannah hates her or her actions being referred to as ‘cute’ so we often do it just to tease her, and, right on cue, she always replies “I’M NOT CUTE!!!!”

So tonight, in response to Simon’s comment, even in the state she was in, half asleep, she responded with an annoyed MOAN. It was funny….and CUTE 😉

I’m now back in parents’ accommodation and have had dinner. One or both of us will have an early start tomorrow and lots of driving, so I’m going to lie in bed reading or watching “Grosse Pointe Blank” on Sky (one of my favourite films, ever!) until sleep takes over.

I hope Hannah has a good night and feels much better tomorrow!