Abby Update: 7am Sunday Morning
Fluorescent lights and a sing-songey "good morning" disintegrates my one and half hours of
exhaustion-induced sleep with the same traumatic effect of banging metal pots and a bullhorn.
"Good morning, folks", I hear a second time, room lights at full nuclear glare now.
I'm in one torture rack (code word for hospital pretend bed); Michelle and Abby are on
another, a pullout couch sort of thingy. I sit up on an elbow, "um, yeah, hey, she didn't fall
asleep until about 5.30am... so if we could not wake her...."
That didn't phase him for a quantum split second as he rang out, "I understand you want the
surgery team to look at her feeding tube site?"
Normally we don't hear from anyone resembling a doctor until late morning or noon, but here's
this guy invading what little sleep we had promptly at "O dark thirty" (that's :30 minutes after
sunrise for you civilians). Of course Michelle has not even blinked. When she is this tired, you
could drive a beer truck with snow chains over her, and she wouldn't even roll over.
"Yeah, that's right... her port entry has a bad infection", I groaned almost at the point of getting
one eye open without burning my retina, not sure if this was really happening or if the
Tribulation had begun and the "Mid/Post" folks were right after all.
"Well, let's take a look," Mr Cheery Young Doctor says and proceeds to start pulling back
covers and lifting Abby's shirt... still in bed, still asleep (or should I say still "under") with Mom in
a coma about 2 ft away.
I cringed as he fiddled around with Abby's feeding tube thinking any minute she would wake
and plunge once again into shrieks of pain. Mercifully, praise God, she didn't wake up. Only an
hour of sleep and enough pain killers to sedate a small family of elephants will do that to a four
year old.
"Okay, well, I'll let'em know..." he announces and walks out.
"I'll let'em know????" Let who know what? Didn't he just examine her?
Turns out, Mr Morning Sunshine With Apparently No Sense of Grasping the Obvious Slumber
Misery In Front Of Him isn't "the" doctor. He was just coming to check on our request to have
"them" (the right Doctors evidently) come look at Abby.
(Note: I may have all the facts totally messed up, but I only had a little over an hour sleep AND
it makes for a lot better story if I tell it this way!)
I turn out the lights, silently thank God that all this didn't wake up Abby, and return to my
backache machine and faux pillow. I close my eyes.... I'm drifting... drifting... drif.....
Skip ahead an ENTIRE ten minutes... the nurses have changed shifts, so now the new nurse is
in here checking vitals and my last hope of going to sleep became our blog's good fortune
because the only quiet and sane thing I can do at this point is write something while Abby and
Michelle slumber peacefully, oblivious to the Dante's dance of the revolving hospital room door
that has become my own private breakfast of "h", "e", "double toothpicks".
Okay, that's an exaggeration too, but I'm a writer, I'm tired, and it's my blog, so what-a ya
gonna do about it? The least I can do is make the most of the morning by making up a good
story and booby-trapping the hospital room door.
Whew... I'm actually getting sleepy again... I think I'll go ahead and catch a few more winks....
zz... zzzz... zzzzzzzzzzz....
"Da-dee.... I have to pah-tee....."
~Brent
Fluorescent lights and a sing-songey "good morning" disintegrates my one and half hours of
exhaustion-induced sleep with the same traumatic effect of banging metal pots and a bullhorn.
"Good morning, folks", I hear a second time, room lights at full nuclear glare now.
I'm in one torture rack (code word for hospital pretend bed); Michelle and Abby are on
another, a pullout couch sort of thingy. I sit up on an elbow, "um, yeah, hey, she didn't fall
asleep until about 5.30am... so if we could not wake her...."
That didn't phase him for a quantum split second as he rang out, "I understand you want the
surgery team to look at her feeding tube site?"
Normally we don't hear from anyone resembling a doctor until late morning or noon, but here's
this guy invading what little sleep we had promptly at "O dark thirty" (that's :30 minutes after
sunrise for you civilians). Of course Michelle has not even blinked. When she is this tired, you
could drive a beer truck with snow chains over her, and she wouldn't even roll over.
"Yeah, that's right... her port entry has a bad infection", I groaned almost at the point of getting
one eye open without burning my retina, not sure if this was really happening or if the
Tribulation had begun and the "Mid/Post" folks were right after all.
"Well, let's take a look," Mr Cheery Young Doctor says and proceeds to start pulling back
covers and lifting Abby's shirt... still in bed, still asleep (or should I say still "under") with Mom in
a coma about 2 ft away.
I cringed as he fiddled around with Abby's feeding tube thinking any minute she would wake
and plunge once again into shrieks of pain. Mercifully, praise God, she didn't wake up. Only an
hour of sleep and enough pain killers to sedate a small family of elephants will do that to a four
year old.
"Okay, well, I'll let'em know..." he announces and walks out.
"I'll let'em know????" Let who know what? Didn't he just examine her?
Turns out, Mr Morning Sunshine With Apparently No Sense of Grasping the Obvious Slumber
Misery In Front Of Him isn't "the" doctor. He was just coming to check on our request to have
"them" (the right Doctors evidently) come look at Abby.
(Note: I may have all the facts totally messed up, but I only had a little over an hour sleep AND
it makes for a lot better story if I tell it this way!)
I turn out the lights, silently thank God that all this didn't wake up Abby, and return to my
backache machine and faux pillow. I close my eyes.... I'm drifting... drifting... drif.....
Skip ahead an ENTIRE ten minutes... the nurses have changed shifts, so now the new nurse is
in here checking vitals and my last hope of going to sleep became our blog's good fortune
because the only quiet and sane thing I can do at this point is write something while Abby and
Michelle slumber peacefully, oblivious to the Dante's dance of the revolving hospital room door
that has become my own private breakfast of "h", "e", "double toothpicks".
Okay, that's an exaggeration too, but I'm a writer, I'm tired, and it's my blog, so what-a ya
gonna do about it? The least I can do is make the most of the morning by making up a good
story and booby-trapping the hospital room door.
Whew... I'm actually getting sleepy again... I think I'll go ahead and catch a few more winks....
zz... zzzz... zzzzzzzzzzz....
"Da-dee.... I have to pah-tee....."
~Brent
Our
Journey:
Journey:
Avalon's Army of Angels
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| I did not write the following entry. It is copied with the blessings of the Author, Brent Riggs. I know Brent and his wife, Michelle, from my online group, ALL-Kids. Brent and Michelle are faithful, funny people with a passel of kids. Their daughter, Abby, is in active chemo for ALL. At the time of this entry, Abby was hospitalized during the worst phase of treatment, Delayed Intesification. Brent is writing about one of those wonderful hospital mornings that many of us have "enjoyed". I seriously laughed so hard I cried as I originally read this. The best thing I can say is, "Been there, met him. Hope he tripped on the way down the hallway after he left the room." Trust me...you'll get it in a minute. If you'd like to read more of Brent's work, or follow up on little Abby, the best place to start is the Rigg's family blog: |