CHLA - Day Three

What a long 24 hours.

So.

I stayed my turn in the hospital with Ryan last night (Jeff stayed the night before). I was prepared and brought my pajamas with me so that I could get comfortable in the lousy convertible chair that was in the room. We keep a pillow and blanket in the room for whoever stays each night.

Ryan is in the room with 3 other patients. Ryan slept pretty solid through the night but would wake up in brief moments moaning in discomfort. I was awake for each of those moans but also because one of his alarms was going off, or one of the roommates alarms was going off. Then one patient would make a sound that would trigger noises from one of the other patients in the room. Nurses came in, came out - cleaning crews came in, came out. Holy Moly. One of the poor boys diagonal from where Ryan was had hallucinations in the middle of the night and though he was bleeding to death. He woke up screaming to his dad about "all the blood" - and the Dad, coming out of a dead sleep, didn't quite get what was going on at first... so that was pretty interesting. While I had complete passion for the kids in the room - I was still quite irritated with the level of noise and chaos.

Jeff arrived about 9:30a. Ryan still hadn't been awake since he came out of surgery. There were a couple times earlier this morning that Ryan had opened his eyes - but he wasn't looking "at" me - - he was looking "through" me... so I knew he was still pretty groggy. It wasn't until later in the afternoon when he started to become more alert. He would stay awake for longer periods of time but then just fade back into sleepiness.

We requested a room change and were able to be put into a smaller room but one that only had one other patient. It was nice because the room stayed vacant until about 5:30p. Jeff, Ryan and I had a lot of peace and quiet. We needed that.

Ryan hasn't fussed much at all today. He's pretty comfortable and content. It's been 48 hours since he's had any liquid, 72 since he's had formula - and he's holding out pretty good. He has been playing with some of his toys and allowed me to read a few books to him. He's really quiet. He looks at us, but still won't express any emotion unless he's in pain or agitated.

The morphine has been making his face itchy. He's got some scratches and redness on his face. He gets a dose of Benadryl in his IV every 4 hours to help out with that side affect.

He started running a fever tonight - which is normal after surgery. They collected blood from him and found that he is slightly anemic - which could be a sign of internal bleeding - or just from the medications he's been given through IV. He also had a pinch in his catheter which caused some swelling - so who knows if maybe that wasn't causing the issue. With no blood coming from the rectum or showing up in the urine, it's probably not any internal bleeding (stay positive). They will draw blood from him in the morning to make sure that his blood count hasn't dropped - and we'll go from there.

I'm pooped. I'll be getting my good nights rest in the quiet hotel room tonight and then will head back over in the morning.