So as mentioned in the last post it had been seven days after the surgery that I was able to see Halina, by this time she was already in a routine with the nurses and I seemed to be a third wheel and felt I was in the way every time someone came in to see her.
The first week I was at the hospital almost everyday and stayed as long as I could or until Halina had enough and wanted to rest. Sleep didn’t come easy for her as someone was constantly coming in to either take blood, check vitals, give her fluids, etc. So when she got tired I would tell her to sleep and would sit by her bed to make sure I was there for when she woke up. At one point I noticed that the bracelet I was given to enter the hospital was almost identical to Halinas so I took a pic for prosperity 🙂
Halina’s day would begin around 7:00 am with the day shift nurses coming on shift, this was when her medication was given, her water via PEG tube, vitals and a few other things I am sure to be forgetting something. At 8:00 am it was time to eat, this entailed a bag of formula being hung on the IV pole and ran through a pump that gave her 250 ml of formula over a period of 2 hours. It took this long because they didn’t want her to become sick and have the chance of throwing up so 2 hours seemed to be a good pace for post surgery feeding.
Before going any further I just wanted to let you know that due to the operation Halina had to undergo a Tracheotomy, this procedure consists of making an incision on the front of the neck and opening a direct airway into the windpipe. At this point a trach tube is inserted thus making it possible for her to breath without the use of the nose or mouth. Inside the trach tube is what is called an inner cannula, this slightly smaller tube is able to be taken out by the patient and replaced a few times a day depending on how much secretions flow out.
Around 9:00 am respiratory therapy would come by and inspect the trach to make sure the trach site was clean around the neck to lessen the chance of infection. They also would replace the inner cannula with a new one at least twice per day depending on if the tube was very dirty or not. During this early time post surgery respiratory was actually coming by many times per day as Halina was coughing up large amounts of phlegm and sometimes would need a deep suction, meaning taking a smaller longer tube and going into the lungs to remove the phlegm and making it easier for her to breath. Now this procedure would alway make her cough which was like a catch 22 scenario.
I would show up around 10:00 am and stay till around 5 or 6:00 pm. Until her next meal at noon there would be constantly people coming in to look in on Halina, nurses, doctors, blood samples, etc. by the time I would get comfy in the chair beside her bed I would have to move so the IV could be changes or the suction lines needed attention or the oxygen hose was getting tangled.
Now at this time Halina had a clipboard with paper and pen to communicate so she was going through a lot of trees that’s for sure, other ways of communicating was by something similar to charades, which I am terrible at as I found out. It didn’t take long to realize that we should start learning some sign language, so I did this at home and when I came to visit I would try and teach Halina a few words everyday but this didn’t last as she was too tired, was taking a lot of medication and just wasn’t in the mood to sit there and try to have me teach her something so back to the pen and paper it was for the duration of her stay in the hospital. Another way we communicated was by texting each other but it was hard to be sitting just a few feet away and we were both just looking at our phones and chatting to each other, I guess I felt more like a millennial or something
After lunch each day the physiotherapists would come by to try and get Halina to at least sit on the edge of her bed, which was a touch chore as her leg was very sore and painful. Nurses would make their rounds for medications and vitals and again at 4:00 pm Halina would eat. There were times when she had 3 separate IV’s, a feeding tube in her stomach, a catheter, her oxygen line all hooked up to her at once, I tell you this was quite the scene, I know Halina was feeling itchy to get out of her bed and at least start walking around the ward a bit just for some different scenery but will save this for another blog.
By the time 5 or 6:00 pm came it was my time to leave so I made the 45 min drive back to our house, sometimes made supper or did some laundry, went to bed and started it all over the next day. In the meantime Halina was trying to catch cat naps between all the interruptions she had throughout the day but hey it was all part of the process!