Last Monday night we invited our Spain students to our first annual "Neck & Nog" party. We all had (or tried to have) Christmas sweaters, turtle necks, egg nog, hot chocolate in decorative Christmas mugs (thanks to Kathy's nephew, Marcus) and cinnamin rolls. It was delightful, but little did we know what an impression it made on Timothy. This morning at 4 am when we called to check on Timothy, (they don't let us sleep by him in the ICU, but we did get a room in the hospital) the nurse asked us, "Do you give him egg nog?" Apparently the fasting, the surgery, and the drugs combined to make him very thirsty. All night he kept saying "egg nog, egg nog," even in his morphine stupor. He only slept one and half hours, but everyone around him got a kick out of hearing him plead for egg nog, and a lot of people heard about his OBSESSION ( as the nurse worded it) with EGG NOG!!! He would not be calmed, but he could not drink yet either. Finally at 6am, they tricked him with some vanilla milk and told him it was egg nog, and he was pacified while he had it.
We came to visit him at 6:30 am. He seemed fine drinking his "egg nog," We had to leave at 7:00 for shift changes. Little did we know what was going to happen right after we left. We don't know if our leaving caused it, but whatever the case, Timothy proceeded to get totally out- of-control for one and a half hours. He screamed, thrashed around, and pulled at all of his tubes. He bled from his chest tubes and nose. To calm him they had to use a different drug, Versed, which they had informed me the night before that they don't usually have to use after the this surgery (the Fontan) like they did after the second surgery (the Glenn). The night nurse stayed 2 extra hours and he took 4 nurses attention to calm him and re-dress all the lines he had loosened. By the time we returned, he had calmed somewhat. The nurses made it pretty clear that we should lay low and let him sleep. That hasn't really worked because when he sees me (Kathy) he wants me right by him. I assured him that I have no plans to leave him. It was interesting when he rejected one of his bibs because it was bloody. Fortunately, I always keep a stash of bibs handy.
We came to visit him at 6:30 am. He seemed fine drinking his "egg nog," We had to leave at 7:00 for shift changes. Little did we know what was going to happen right after we left. We don't know if our leaving caused it, but whatever the case, Timothy proceeded to get totally out- of-control for one and a half hours. He screamed, thrashed around, and pulled at all of his tubes. He bled from his chest tubes and nose. To calm him they had to use a different drug, Versed, which they had informed me the night before that they don't usually have to use after the this surgery (the Fontan) like they did after the second surgery (the Glenn). The night nurse stayed 2 extra hours and he took 4 nurses attention to calm him and re-dress all the lines he had loosened. By the time we returned, he had calmed somewhat. The nurses made it pretty clear that we should lay low and let him sleep. That hasn't really worked because when he sees me (Kathy) he wants me right by him. I assured him that I have no plans to leave him. It was interesting when he rejected one of his bibs because it was bloody. Fortunately, I always keep a stash of bibs handy.
1 comment:
so glad to see that the party was a success! Mine was too. Timothy is amazing
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