Sunday AM, POD#3

8:00am: Arrived at the hospital. Starr stayed with him last night, and mom went in to see him when we got here. I haven't been in yet; Starr says he is eating breakfast of pancakes and bacon, with apple juice and milk (YAY), but doesn't want to finish until he gets his chocolate milk (someone's getting cranky... To me, it means that being here is getting to him, and he's doing better enough to BE cranky. I'm good with that. Of course, I'm not his wife!). He had his milk and apple juice already, and then ordered chocolate milk. Nurse said he is consuming and outputting plenty of fluids; Matt is sick of water and doesn't want to drink any more of the stuff. He's good with ginger ale and other liquids though. When we left late last night, he wanted a Coke. The rule had been "no caffeine" on the floor, but he is far enough along that the nurse ok'd it.
8:30am: Starr left to go take a shower. Matt is still eating. Mom came out so he could have some private time. Dad or I will go in next. Still has a limit of two visitors at a time.
9:25am: I just went in; he is sleepy but answered my questions. I asked if he was sick being here, or if he just wants to be home; he said "I just want to be in a different room". He is so polite to the nurses; even went tired and cranky he says "please" and "thank you".  The nurse was giving him IV Reglan (for nausea); I asked if he was still nauseated, and he mumbled. He had eaten his whole breakfast, then it all came back up. He now has his own little ice bucket for his drinks (I didn't see any chocolate milk...?). States his head pain is at level 5 now. 

These pics are all out of the order in which I wanted, but we'll start here. This is the back half of his room in ICU, and mom is sitting on the couch on which Starr sleeps:

 This is the hallway in NCCU coming to his room near the end on the right:

 This is the view when you first walk in his room:

 These are the supply trays...only interesting to a few of us :)

 He is wearing the typical plastic hospital bracelet, and with every blood sample they take, they have this gadget that imprints a label to affix to the vial.

 He doesn't want any more water, and they brought him his own little "cooler" for drinks.

 This is his front door in the hallway...you can see he is lying there, trying to sleep.

 

 



11:15am: Another round of meds, since the last ones came back up with breakfast. Got Lortab and Zofran.

11:30am: He is ready for a shower. Mom asked him if he wanted to sleep or shower, and he said "both". The physical therapist came and in wanted him to get up and walk around, but he chose shower first.

He isn't out of "DI watch" yet (keeping an eye on the urine quality), and even if he was moved out of ICU yesterday they would have brought him back today because of that. He will still have a 24-hour watch on him before discharge, whether he is in ICU or a regular room, so there's no rush to get him out of ICU right now. Maybe if he is doing "stellar" he may get out of the hospital on Tuesday. He is getting blood drawn now and is not a happy camper about it. Could be the repeat attempts at a draw...? They are warming his arm to see if this will help get the vein.

He decided to get the catheter out since it will help him to move around a little better and maybe improve things quicker, so that was just done. He's not all that excited to be up and around though. Probably more pain. Anything that raises the blood pressure in the head can cause pain, and being ambulatory after being in bed for four days can cause a shift in intracranial pressure. Even if it's mostly subjective, who blames him??

12:00pm: Jeff and Deann are here, so I went with them down to the cafeteria. Pudding and chai tea! We also bought a thing of choco moo juice for Matt :) Tried to watch the downloaded "Pitch Perfect" on my laptop, but apparently it takes like 333 hours to download on this wireless service!  ugh. So we are left to entertain ourselves, which is a big DUH, since we're pretty good at that anyway. Topics have ranged from peeing when you're drunk, to gay men vs lesbians making out. Starr is missing out!

Royce and Tom just showed up. I'm sure the topics won't veer far from here...