There and Back Again

            Well now, it's been a million years since I posted. Or three weeks, whatevs.  We are finally home from the great hospital expedition of 2017.  Robokid is healing up nicely, barring a mild thrush infection from all the antibiotics.  I do wish we were managing her pain better but opioids are out - depresses her breathing, as are nsaids -will affect how her hardware/spine heal and bond together.  We are stuck with tylenol and distraction for the time being.  For the most part it's alright.  Feisty Pants is feisty as hell and tough as nails.  But from around 6pm to 7pm every night, she sobs.   We are not quite sure why.   My guess is pain but it could be pain plus fatigue or even just the emotional effects of having, as the surgeon put it, her entire nervous system tinkered with.   So her father and I, along with her nurse, second guess ourselves, hold her hands, and feel like horrible human beings.   Until about 7pm, when she magically stops and the Universe becomes wonderful (or at least, normal) again.

             Other than that, it's just really weird coming home from a long hospital stay.  Feisty Pants has had so many and they never seem to change.  Your world is turned topsy turvy, often with no notice and breakneck speed.  Then the day to day hospital life becomes it's own weird little routine.  Then you are shoved back home.  It's like coming home from war or waking up from a coma.  (I'm at least half right there.) The world is exactly the same but yet for you and yours, it isn't.  The house looks the same.  The world is the same.  But you somehow are different and yet you need to find a way to fit yourself back into your old life as if putting on a pair of old, comfy shoes.

               In an odd way, it's a little comforting that my house tends to a little chaotic.  I may be bitching and screaming and kicking as I put my house back together, and unpack, and shoo out the various lunatics (two legged and four), and catch up on three weeks worth of laundry. I am definitely bitching as I try desperately to catch up on paperwork and make doctor's appointments and get even more paperwork now made necessary by FP's surgery/hospital stay/shaman treatment/exorcism.  But it all gives me a way to slowly catch up with myself psychologically until I start to see light at the end of the tunnel, and realize we are truly home at last.  

             

              

The Language of Healing

                     Well,  now we are on our third week in Shriner's.  The surgeries are done.  The rods and screws are in. Robokid is doing pretty well considering she was bisected and rebuilt. Twice. She looks fabulous with a capital FAB.  Before she looked like Richard III straight of the Shakespeare play. Now she looks about Richard III in real life.  The breathing tube is out.  For the second time.   She has been moved out of the PICU.  For the second time.   Weaned her down from heroin to heroin lite. Weaned her down from two iv antibiotics to one oral one. (Oral being loosely defined as whatever we can shoot into Feisty Pants' g-tube.). All in all, it's been pretty smooth sailing.  

                      So, now we come to the actual hard part.  The physical therapy.  The respiratory therapies designed to get her lungs back on track after two major surgeries in eight days. The part where she is sore and cranky and mad at us for doing this to her.  The somewhat boring, really hard work of healing and rehab. The hospital staff now has the unenviable task of teaching Feisty Pants to not throw herself out/off of things that are annoying her.  And of teaching her cranky parents not to break her.   But while we doing all this relearning of how to best manhandle Robokid, I've noticed I'm slowly picking up on the medical lingo and thought I would pass some of it along.

Doctor lingo-

What they say:                                                   What it means:

I'm a little concerned about....                            This is freaking me right the eff out...

I'd like to explain....                                            Hear my wisdom, Mortal.

You have to understand....                                   but you won't, idiot.

Nurse, where did you put (insert item here).      Nurse, I lost (item) again.

Nurse, I've charted that on the computer.            See, I didn't forget! This time.

Nurse lingo-

What they say:                                                    What it means:

Dr, when did you want me start (procedure)?     Moron, we need to do it now. Right now.

Well, that's just our Dr. So-and-so.                      Who has the social skills of baboon.

Well, now that's interesting.                                 How the eff did you manage that!?!?

Ok, dr., I'll get right on that.                                 Get out of the way so I can it done.

Hmmmmm....                                                Freak out now. Right now.

                    Now, if I can just figure what the hell is meant by the sign in the bathroom telling people not to throw away "bowel programs" in the trash.