After a quick lunch, we hit the road again towards Concord Hospital to visit my brother Philip.
Not gonna lie, I was beyond exhausted but I was excited to see him after a being apart for a year even if it was because he was in the hospital.
When I saw him for the first time, he kind of looked like death. Sorry Phil, but ya did. He was pale with an oxygen mask over his face and he couldn't speak more than a few sentences without getting winded.
He was in good spirits and at least was on the far side of the room by the window. He had a lovely view (which I totally forgot to snap a picture of...)
We spent a lot of time going between my parent's house and the hospital that week to keep the poor boy sane. He was SO bored. And I totally don't blame him. At least the hospital offered Wi-Fi!
Noella spent a lot of time in his lap, Giraffe tucked firmly in her mouth watching cartoons on Netflix. Noella's choice of cartoons did not please my brother but he stuck through it anyway for some cuddle time. It's good practice for when he and Jennie have babies.
Slowly he was weaned off of the oxygen mask and was able to just use the cannula nose thingy. He hated it more than the mask because it dried out his nose. I don't know how he could stand having little plastic pieces sitting in his nostrils. No thank you!
Because he was in the hospital for blood clots in his lungs and the genetic tests were negative, they really had no idea why he had the clots in his lungs so they focused on getting his clotting factor to normal levels. This meant he had to have blood drawn every four hours for the first four days of his hospital stay. Because he has the same lovely bruising genes I do, he looked like a heroin addict. Note the MASSIVE nasty bruises on his forearm. He also has the same "rolly" veins my mom and I do; Meaning that when they go in with the needle, his veins move around when the needle hits it initially. It's not easy to draw blood from people with rolly veins therefore there's a lot of time spent fishing for the vein and therefore there's a lot more bruising.
All of the bruises changed from deep purple to blue, to a greenish color and finally yellow before he was sent home.
By the end of the week Noella was kind of over sitting with Philip to watch cartoons. Especially when she realized the hospital had "Elligators" (Elevators) which she asked to ride about a bazillion times each visit. This resulted in Gammy, Aunt Jennie and I taking turns taking her on walks around the visiting area lobby or up the elevators just because we couldn't take her asking any more.
Luckily the whole week wasn't spent visiting the hospital. We also made it to a few lovely parks in the area. One with Gammy and another park with Aunt Jennie. She LOVED it.
The Miss also hit another milestone on the trip. She learned how use the "big girl" swings. The whole time she was swinging all I could think was "When did she get big enough to use those!? Wasn't I like 11 when I first learned!? Surely she's too young." But nope. She's a big big girl now!
Aunt Jennie was SO fun. She was nice enough to share her room with us during our stay. She made sure she had extra snacks when we went to the hospital and even ran the Miss to the potty a few times for me. She seriously kept me sane because that little darling babe of mine was up before 5am 6 out of 7 days that first week. Jennie, you are AWESOME and I can't thank you enough for your help that week.
By Saturday we were going a little stir crazy so Gammy and Papa packed us up and we headed to the beach. But that's saved for Part 3. (This was a LONG 10 days so there's 4 parts. Stay tuned!)
No comments:
Post a Comment