Dear Madeline,
It's been an interesting 24 hours for you. Yesterday brought great news overall and you had your resilience and persistence on full display. Going into last night and the overnight hours, you started paying the price for removing your waste tube. I lost count of how many times you made those sweet nurses change your bed linens after you gave the special effects in The Exorcist a run for their money. How ironic that pulpy green is the color of both.
In light of your overnight shenanigans, The docs ordered the NG tube reinserted today, and that worked out well for the most part (so did those arm immobilizers!). The bigger issue today was your pain. Since the pain management specialists removed your epidural, which kept your incision area nice and numb, the reality of what you've been through began hitting you pretty hard. All the times you puked your guts out or coughed to clear your chest clearly put your body under additional stress, and your crying told the story. As did all those soiled sheets and blankets, coated IV lines, and fresh dressings.
Mom got to hold you today for a good while. I know that did her heart good. Your old man, on the other hand, held you earlier this morning but had to scoot to get home. After spending some time with Josie, I needed to get cracking on a few things. I placed a call to BC/BS to update my phone number - a wise soul suggested that one of their social workers was probably trying to get in touch (and sure enough, this was confirmed) - explained your hospital stay, and confirmed my "catastrophic" out of pocket payment obligation. Maybe it only felt like I was on the phone with them for an hour, but every time I need to talk to them about anything, I always feel so exhausted by the time I hang up.
Tomorrow, there are other things I need to tackle on a mounting to do list, not the least of which is to plow though some of the childhood cancer book we received from the hospital social worker. If all goes well, we begin discussing your treatment plan with the oncologists, remove the NG tube and get you feeding again, and get some quality physical therapy time in as well. Tomorrow is a new day, so let's leave today's challenges behind and start anew with the morning sun.
I love you, sweetie.
Love,
Daddy
It's been an interesting 24 hours for you. Yesterday brought great news overall and you had your resilience and persistence on full display. Going into last night and the overnight hours, you started paying the price for removing your waste tube. I lost count of how many times you made those sweet nurses change your bed linens after you gave the special effects in The Exorcist a run for their money. How ironic that pulpy green is the color of both.
In light of your overnight shenanigans, The docs ordered the NG tube reinserted today, and that worked out well for the most part (so did those arm immobilizers!). The bigger issue today was your pain. Since the pain management specialists removed your epidural, which kept your incision area nice and numb, the reality of what you've been through began hitting you pretty hard. All the times you puked your guts out or coughed to clear your chest clearly put your body under additional stress, and your crying told the story. As did all those soiled sheets and blankets, coated IV lines, and fresh dressings.
Mom got to hold you today for a good while. I know that did her heart good. Your old man, on the other hand, held you earlier this morning but had to scoot to get home. After spending some time with Josie, I needed to get cracking on a few things. I placed a call to BC/BS to update my phone number - a wise soul suggested that one of their social workers was probably trying to get in touch (and sure enough, this was confirmed) - explained your hospital stay, and confirmed my "catastrophic" out of pocket payment obligation. Maybe it only felt like I was on the phone with them for an hour, but every time I need to talk to them about anything, I always feel so exhausted by the time I hang up.
Tomorrow, there are other things I need to tackle on a mounting to do list, not the least of which is to plow though some of the childhood cancer book we received from the hospital social worker. If all goes well, we begin discussing your treatment plan with the oncologists, remove the NG tube and get you feeding again, and get some quality physical therapy time in as well. Tomorrow is a new day, so let's leave today's challenges behind and start anew with the morning sun.
I love you, sweetie.
Love,
Daddy
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