Day Three - Thursday

Wednesday flips over to Thursday.

Carol my nurse puts me back on the BiPap much to my disgust -it's in the wee hours of Thurs morning.  She has to leave for her tea break and says I need to be on it for a hour. I look at the clock counting the minutes.

Right on the hour, I ring my buzzer, and the nurse next door pops in. I say time to stop the Bipap - and he says "Oh Gen I think you have to be on this all night" and I literally had a tanty, stamping my legs and say "nooooooooo".  I could see him think ah oh.   "Well Gen you have to wait for your nurse to come back".

Thankfully she did not take long  to come back to me and she lets me stop the BiPap. Ah bliss. Well only for a second - then I focus on all the other uncomfortable pieces of me!!

I'm back to being extremely uncomfortable instead of intensely uncomfortable! lol.

I just keep watching the clock. There is nothing much else to do.  At some point I am able to think of gratitude but a lot of the time I'm focussed on feeling miserable!

I cannot get over how hot I feel all the time.  My breathing feels rotten and worse than I have ever felt previously!

Eventually my family arrives.  I'm totally exhausted by this time. I think it's Di and Mike first in the morning and then at lunchtime Mum comes.  Di had been on holidays in America with Rick but has come over for a week. Mike my brother has to go to Singapore for work on the Saturday, so he is only able to stay for 24 hours. Dad also came down from Bamawm but he had a cold and so was unable to visit. Unreal the timing!! Poor Dad!!

Later Sue arrives and she says,

"I visited in the afternoon and by that stage Gen  was very, very tired as she didn’t get much sleep during the night. ICU is a very noisy place with lots of beeping equipment everywhere. While I was there she had the lines for recording blood pressure and administering nor-adrenaline removed. They were also talking about removing two of the drainage tubes.

She still had quite a bit of fluid on the lungs. She had on a Hudson mask for oxygen, and they also used a Bi-PAP machine at various times to deliver oxygen but it is also used to help shift the fluid.

Overall the Drs were happy with her progress, saying it all fitted in the pattern of a normal recovery.

In the evening we all met up after dinner at Tilly (Tilson Drive) and exchanged stories from the day. It was nice to be together sharing our experiences and thinking how lucky we were that Gen was doing so well. "

Back to Gen...

I respond a bit but mostly I just listen. I had more energy in the morning with Di and Mike. By the time Sue has come I'm just beyond exhaustion!  I can hardly speak because of the tube feeding me and from the other breathing tube hitting my vocal chords on the way out. 

The gang leave. I'm very jealous they are all having these wonderful family gatherings while I'm in ICU! HAHAHA!!

I can't really lie down flat as I desaturate too much. So I'm lying propped up - another reason why I can't sleep - I have never been able to sleep like that!! 

I can't lie to my left side at all as I get too gurgly in that lung (fluid, and also I can feel things rubbing in there!), and can't move to my right because I can't breathe comfortably either.  I just can't get comfortable in any way in body position and my bum is sore.   And once my mind runs through all that, I'm back to being hot! What I wouldn't give to have a fan blowing on me - I fantasise about that for a while.  I figure it's not even worth asking, as you wouldn't want a fan in ICU blowing germs around!!

I  am not allowed to have been eating or drinking anything up until now, just suck on ice. It relieves me for about one second, then I'm back to feeling thirsty. But the ice is also so painful on my throat.  I just can't win!

I don't reckon I'll be able to sleep at all - it's not even worth trying -  so to pass the time I help with emptying my catheter.  Haha! And we tick over to Friday.