It's Been A While

Jamie Update, Toilets, Jack-o-lanterns,

I Know What You Want To Hear About First

Antonio, were you able to get that toilet fixed? Did you get a No Slam seat?

Check and Check!

How’s It Been Going?

Goodness. It has almost been a week since my last update. I am so sorry. It has been a week. I mentioned to Jamie, that I needed to write a post. She said, “ It’s ok. Take your time. If I wrote a post right now, all it would says is that I am alive. And then I’d hit send.”

Here I am. Getting you the update. I think I am going tackle this in Chronological order. Let’s see what my camera roll gives me.

Wed Oct 9 Night

I came home to find that mom and Javi picked up a a new board game. Let me tell you The Game of Life: Super Mario Edition is killer. It resembles Mario Party. And for the mini challenges, you may have to play Rock, Paper, Scissors against a player of your choosing. We are still trying to get Javi to throw his choice on “shoot.”

Rock, Paper, Scissors, Shoot!

Thurs Oct 10

When I walked into Jamie’s room, I found these to angles sleeping.

Oh and I need to clarify one thing from the last post. Jamie wasn’t in ICU. Turns out she was in PCU. PCU stands for Progressive Care Unit. PCU is a place where you need some extra / specialized attention but you don’t need that level ICU.

It took Jamie a hot minute to get order to leave. The doc wanted her to void (pee) 400 ml before you she could leave. And if she didn’t void, they would have to send her home with a catheter. Yeah. fun. Jamie took a FlowMax and drank a ton of water. It took a bit over an hour before she was ready to go to the bathroom.

At the hospital, Jamie had spent so much time in the recliner at PCU. You know what we don’t have, a recliner. I called Jamie’s dad Thursday morning and by Thursday afternoon, we had a recliner in our living room.

Home.

I think we finally got to leave around 2pm. Jamie had to beg for half a pain killer.

The next 48 hours were a blur. It took both Lala (Jamie’s mom) and I to care for Jamie. She needed 2 people to help her out of the recliner. Jamie was not allowed to use her arms to get up. All thighs. Jamie had to keep her hips bent 45 degree angle. Why, you might ask.

To make Jamie’s Goobs (Gut Boobs), Dr Potter filleted Jamie from hip bone to hip bone. Jamie kind of looks like Frankenweenie or Sally from the Nightmare before Christmas. Both of these fine films are on Disney+ right now!

Frankenweenie!

Fri Oct 12

By this point in time, Jamie hasn’t has a pain killer. Her patience had dropped. She was short. Keep in mind, Jamie naturally has low blood pressure. She was told by the nurses in PCU that she shouldn’t have a pain killer until she talks to the doc. The pic below explains a lot about Friday

Jamie and her drains.

Jamie was tired on Friday and we had an appt with Dr Potter at 1:30 in the afternoon. Dr Potter has us document everything. Jamie’s drains are regularly measured. All of this data ends up on a chart.

The whole day is planned. We plan Jamie’s shower so she can go straight to the car, and pack Jamie’s charts. Jamie showers. She migrates to the car - looking back this was just too much to happen all in one moment. By the time we got her into the seat she was wiped. Traffic was miserable due to ACL Fest. We get half way to the office and realize we left the charts behind. You could feel the tension build in the car. I called our neighbor Gabby, she wasn’t home. I text our neighbor Mike, he wasn’t home at that moment. Sure enough, Jennifer was home. She saved the day. She ran over and sent us a photo of the charts. “These charts must be important?!?!?” Yes, they are. These charts help Dr Potter decide if and when which drains are pulled.

Noticed Jamie’s 45 degree angle. She has to walk to the bathroom as her exercise.

We get to the office (10 minutes late) and then Jamie has to walk from the parking lot, up the handicap ramp, through the doors, to the elevator, ride up a floor, and then walk another 20 yards to the office. This was a labor. Jamie was beat at this point. I didn’t go into the appt but Dr Potter said things were looking good. The skin is the right color and Jamie got 2 drains removed.

Notice the new angle.

2 hours later, Jamie was now allowed to start using her hands. and could be standing at about a 25 degree angle. At one point, Dr Potter looked and at Jamie and said, “You look miserable. You can take take half a pain killer. We don’t need to be tough any more.”

To be continued …

And this is where I am going to leave off for today. Tune into the on the same bat channel at the same bat time!

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