Flashbacks

I've been spending a lot of the time at the hospital lately, and mostly it's just fine, sitting around while Jacob sleeps. But there have been a couple of times where I've started having almost a panic attack because I kind of have a flashback to my first stay in a hospital when I broke my femur in 2005. Yesterday they were having Jake get out of bed to sit in a chair for 30 minutes and as they're doing the prepping, making sure tubes are not going to get snagged, the chair is positioned well, etc. I started thinking back to when the Physical Terrorist made me get up my first time(PT--they claimed it stood for Physical Therapist, but my buddy who broke her leg with me agreed that they misnamed his job). Anyway, so the PT came and made me get out of bed (aaaargh) and put pressure on my broken leg (ouuuch!) and try to take a step. Just getting out of bed brought tears to my eyes and much pain. So as Jake was getting ready to get out of bed I got a little faint, had to sit down, and the nurse brought me some OJ. I got over it and Jake did totally fine with just a little pain getting up and down, but overall, no problem at all. Thankfully.

The other flashback was Friday night after his surgery was all done and he was back in his room. I stayed with him for a few hours making sure he got more pain meds. And more. And more. Until he was relatively comfortable. Then the nurse told me hospital policy doesn't allow a wife to stay in the room through the night if there's another patient in the room. It was actually helpful because before that Jake was saying he wanted me to stay longer (even though I was getting pretty tired and ready for bed), so when he heard that he said that was fine and he'd be fine. So driving back over to my parents' house I thought back to the first night that I spent without anyone at the hospital room with me. Someone (my mom, probably?) had spent the night the first few nights, and I had had my buddy sharing the room with me, but she was released that day, and I was all by my lonesome. And that is the only night out of that whole week that I had muscle spasms in my leg. And WOW! Those were some muscle spasms. And since it was the first time I'd had spasms, there wasn't any standing orders for muscle relaxants, so I had to wait for them to get in touch with a doctor to order some. So those poor nurses on that entire floor were in the room seeing what they could do to help--I may have been a little vocal for a while there. It felt like an hour. It was probably 10-15 minutes. But still.... So this is what I remembered as I left my poor husband to fend for himself, not being able to move hardly at all, and in much pain shortly after surgery. Poor guy. Luckily I was exhausted, so fell asleep quickly and didn't have to dwell on it too long. And he had no horror stories to tell the next day since he had morphine to keep him asleep pretty much the whole time I was gone (and the entire next day I was there, too).

So hopefully I'm over my traumatic hospital experience and can just enjoy this one from here on out. Uh, maybe not enjoy, but you know... endure. Jake is improving. Today he walked up and down the hall 4 different times, going a little farther each time. And he's having less pain. He may get to start on a clear liquid diet tomorrow and work up to real food if all goes well. He's STARVING, having not eaten anything of substance since last Tuesday. And hopefully tomorrow we get the pathology report back and everything is good. Thanks for the prayers and support! Hopefully this is all over real soon. Stinkin' Steve.