Packing always sucks, burrell, but packing your sibling's stuff is necessary. Good on you for dealing with it.
Go Grace! How odd that must be for her.
Yeah. So they do the whole procedure in the ER. She came out of anesthesia in the OR and was fine until she realized that she had no trache. Then she panicked.
They calmed her down with an iPad, but eventually she unhinged a bit and they put in a smaller trache. Which she actively disliked. Then they got her larger trache back in (ow) and they talked to her. She eventually asked for the trache to be taken out please and thank you. So they did.
She skipped recovery and they moved her straight to the intensive care unit, well they will observe her overnight. If all goes well, she'll then be transferred to a regular pediatric floor for another night of observation.
Two funny things and one sad one: She immediately asked me if she could go swimming. Today. I told her not until the hole in her neck was 100% closed. She is going to need swim lessons ASAP.
Funny thing #2. In the PICU, you either use a bed pan or you can use the toilet. Which is in a cabinet under a table. WEIRD. She thought it was a riot.
After using the toilet, I tried to get her back in bed and she got a little gunky and panicky and asked to be suctioned. I had to point out that she no trache anymore so no suctioning.
I think I'm still stuck on "wow".
Wow, and go Grace go! I love that she wants to go swimming RIGHT NOW.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GRACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Us too! I'm just a little nervous to be too excited.
We've been using swimming at the motive for a long time. It's basically the one thing she needs to be without a trache for. Given how we have lived it's the biggest thing she can't do because of a trache.
Grace in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit showing off her band-aided but naked neck. [link]
Grace! Hope she gets used to the new sensations quickly. Does she have to do pt to clear her throat and whatever? (Toilet under a cabinet-when I first read that, I wondered if some sort of weird autocorrect. I can't quite picture it.) Tell her I can't wait to get to swim with her. And that's a lovely thing for her to find to focus on.
AC installed in the bedroom. I didn't get sweaty this time, but there was a thunderstorm and I had to crawl out on the porch roof during in, so maybe I couldn't tell/was preemptively cooled. Noticeably getting drier in the house.
Interesting pool conversation. Guy next to me asked if I got shoulder pain 'right here.' Um, yes. Ex-competitive swimmer from Cameroon. Hasn't been in training since 2008. Swam in Barcelona. Anyway, he had constructive critiques of my form ("you have to be hurting *here* and *here* when you are not swimming. But not hurting during swimming, yes?") and was all " you just have to focus..." and I started laughing. I swim to zone out . That's why when bad forms creep in I have a helluva time correcting them (hence slower lap creep since 2 years ago. I used to almost do 2 miles in the time it takes me to do my 1.5 on a bad day, uhg.)
Anyway, we had a fun conversation about the difference in mindsets between a competitive swimmer (even an ex) and someone like me. He loves to swim, but on some level, it still feels like a 'job' and he's trying to get away from that and just enjoy the movement. And I'd like to get better, but taking that as a challenge defeats its primary purpose for me. I told him I'd give it some thought and maybe, MAYBE let him help me out a bit. 'But if it gets me mad, I can't have that.' We'll see.
Aw, Grace. She looks so proud!
