The Puddles

I come to the hospital this morning and Ben is dressed and eating breakfast.  He looks a lot like his old self.  He took several laps with daddy this morning all ready and had an xray.

His temperature went up a little last night to about 100 degrees.  Not a big deal, but something to watch.  His blood pressure is still high.  He dinged the bell this morning at 145/80.  The nurse has a plan to try to do a better job of controlling his blood pressure, but we still have to get approval from the doctors.  His pressure is still high in part because his heart hasn’t learned to settle down from working so hard prior to surgery.  It is still a work in progress.

There is now some talk that we may not be able to get home tomorrow. They can’t get us scheduled to go to the echo tomorrow.  So we may have to wait until Tuesday.  Hospitals are like that.  You never know when something will happen.  We are just one small part of a huge mechanism.

On another note . . . I am having some awesome adventures riding the metrorail.  I rode by myself last night.  Not too bad. I saw my first rat, and a very nice young man sat next to me.  Of course on first sight this young man could cause someone to grab her purse and hold it tighter (all in black with kind of that gangster look).  And yet he asked me, “Mamn, may I please sit next to you?” . . . some small talk . . . and then,”Thank you for letting me sit next to you.”  I learned to not judge but to still be careful.

The world is good and we may get more visitors today. Ben would like that. And the Kennels arrive to take the girls.  They are all so excited.  I told Marsha to not be surprised if she gets lots of cuddles. More later . . .

We took a trip to the library on the 16th floor. Ben didn’t want to walk but he did decide to ride his police car up the elevator to the library.

He checked out a couple of books while in the car and a couple of videos.   I think that we have done a great job of wearing him out tonight.  No nap.  Hopefully he will sleep through the night and come out well rested.

I am leaving him with Dad.  So all of the rules change. Ride in the bed is ok. Watch anything on tv.  The world is good with Dad.

This is a picture of Ben and Madie from 2006.  This is a totally different experience this time. His pain management is under control.  He looks great this time.  The color is in his cheeks.  He is up and moving.  Ben is a different boy this time.

Thank you God.

It is past 12:00pm and we are waiting on lunch.  We have not had anything to eat or drink since last night.  We had the chest tubes removed.  We had an xray taken. We are waiting to have the tests read so that we know whether we can eat or not.

Hurry up!  Hurry up! Hurry up!  Ben is ready to eat and drink.

Ben has had his eye of this Little Tykes Police Car since we took a tour before the surgery.  So as soon as we got down here we grabbed it and parked it in the room.

Ben took his first lap around the cardio floor this morning.  We went to the fish tank and checked it out.  We tried to find the shark that is suppose to be in there, but we couldn’t find it. Yet.  We are still making laps and checking out the tank.

Ben is completely without wires now (except for the IV port). So he is free to move about the floor.

He has to eat, pee, and move.  So we are working on that.

Yesterday, he wanted to talk on the walkie-talkie in the car, so Grandma G. moved the car to the top of the table.  He had so much fun.

Tomorrow we are going to wear real clothes and keep working on our jobs.  We don’t have any appointments until Monday.  And if the tests all go well on Monday we may get to go home.

Chest tubes out. New jammies on. The boy is ready to go.  He quickly climbed out of the bed, so that he could look out of the window at the water wall.  This is as close as mom wants to get to the window.  I hate the 15th floor.  Let’s face it.  I would hate the 2nd floor. Ben climbed up on the couch faster than I could tell him not too.

He has been waiting a long time to look out of the window.

The doctor just came in and took out Ben’s chest tubes.  He now has three belly buttons.  Cute!  The boy did great.  No flinching and just a little whining.  Perfectly normal.  Just ask any person who has had a chest tube yanked out of his body.  Ben did awesome.

When they were done, Ben said he didn’t want anymore yanking, pulling, or tying.  Deal.  At least for the next hour.

He has his ipod touch on and is watching Bolt.  We will go for an xray soon to make sure that his innards look good.  We will go soon.

On the other hand, Madie has decided to start vomiting. Poor thing.  I think that she is under so much stress right now.  She has had to be good for an entire week.  No backtalking, no refusing to do chores, no typical almost-eight year old behavior.  Grandma G. is on her way to Aunt Deb’s house to rescue Madie, Ainsley, and Aunt Debra.  Aunt Debra has had a rough night with poor Madie.  She needs a break too.  Grandma G. is taking the girls home with her.  The Kennels arrive Sunday at the house to take over parent duty.  I hope Marsha and Lonnie are well rested.  Take your advil now Marsha!

I am going to run out of adjectives to describe how well my BenBen is doing.  Chris is here for our shift change.  My dad is here to be Chris’ backup and my mom and I are ready to depart for some sleep.

Ben had his central line removed and when he moved down to his new regular room, he was taken off all constant monitoring.  Ben managed to remove the IV out of his foot during the night.  So we are slowly getting rid of all of our “strings” (that is what Ben calls them). There is great hope that we will remove his chest tubes tomorrow, but then again maybe not.  We will just have to see.

We go for an xray tomorrow morning and he has to get up and walk more in the morning.  He did walk to the bathroom and back to his bed.  He truly is a hard workin’ dude.  He is determined to go home soon.

Right now he is figuring out the pleasures of a bed with remote controls.  Up. Down. Up. Down.  Almost folded the bed in half with him squished in the middle.  That is my BenBen.

More great nurses have greeted us on this new floor.  We are in room 1517. Chris tells me that this was the year of the reformation, so this is a GOOD room with EXCELLENT Lutheran vibes.

I know that tomorrow will be another awesome day.  God is good.  He has given me back my boy in great shape.  We have a few more hurdles to jump, but we will get there with God by our side.

Madie was very sad today.  She missed her brother badly. (Ainsley asked if we were going to bury Ben in the backyard next to Abby. A week ago I would not have done well with that statement but we are on the other side of our drama, so I can see the  humor now.)

So Daddy sneaked Madie upstairs.  He asked the front desk, “Does she look 12?” (you have to be over 12 to get in the hospital).  The nurse said that if Chris says Madie is 12 than she has to take his word for it.

So Madie came inside (did I mention that Chris had a lot of explaining to do with Madie about why he lied.  Not pretty. glad it was him and not me.) There was such joy in the fact that she got to see her brother and talk to him.  She stayed for about 10 minutes and then Daddy wisked her down the elevator again.

It was worth breaking all of the rules to have Madie reassured that Ben was ok.  She is my little worrier.

Thank you Nurse Katie and Nurse Shannon.  You have helped me get out of my ICU room and into my regular room.