Halloween…a special day to remember the dead. Kind of an Autumn Memorial Day? Is this another one of our “special” days that we have contorted into fun, food, and foolishly spending money on? Just checkin’.
If so, Miki did not disappoint. She called me just as I was getting
ready for my daily jaunt to The Point and requested some Halloween candy and
something to put it in. If you
haven’t caught it by now, what Miki wants, Miki gets.
I headed to one of our local
grocery stores to grab some candy and at the end of one of the isles where they
put weird stuff, I saw some weird stuff.
I saw these little fake stuffed animal heads that went over your head
like a stocking cap and down from it were hanging matching paws for that
particular animal. They looked
like they would fit the head of a child pretty well, so I got Miki one. Hers was a lion and she loved it…I did
good.
Her morning was as good as I
have seen her in some time. She
ate cereal I brought from home, her voice was as normal as I have heard it in a
looong time, and everyone that entered the room all morning was served up a
black cauldron of treats to choose from.
Snickers seemed to be the favorite. She is low maintenance and she has candy…no wonder she is
the favored one on the cardiac floor.
Late morning brought an
echocardiogram to rule out some fluid around the heart as a problem, but turned
out to be something to put on the “watch list” and nothing to prevent her from
moving forward. But…she hit a wall
(figuratively speaking) while out of the room and the pain in her hip soared
until mother morphine came to the rescue.
It took care of her pain and the rest of her day. Evidently it conks her out as
well. Her treating the tricksters
was over, but it was great while it lasted.
We’ve met some more great
nurses on floor 5 after having been spoiled on 6. But then when you practically take care of yourself, what’s
not to like from a nurse’s point of view?
But wait, its not Miki that is doing all the work, It’s me! For example, a short list of
responsibilities I have taken on are, #1 - respiratory therapist’s assistant,
where I hand them the breathing thingy and then turn on the air so it bubbles
the medication into a mist where she inhales it for a period of time and then I
turn off the air and place the device back in the bag until next time. #2 – nurse’s assistant to the assistant
or ice bag runner in a nutshell.
And then there is #3 – special assistant to the urology department’s
custodian where I measure the pee output, clean out the special collection
device, place it back on the toilet, and record said output on the appropriate
form. The way I see it, I’ll be
administering medications and running the IV pumps before this journey is
over…a medical road scholar if you will.
As I leave Miki each night,
she gets a head rub followed by a bunch of kisses about the head and neck since
we have been keeping our mouths to ourselves, so the infectious disease folks
don’t start pointing fingers and I take a few snapshot looks as I head out the
door to picture her on the way home.
I hate leaving her more than I assume the dogs love to see me come
through the door in hopes of getting their rawhide chews each night. It is a pretty close call.
My Zen from Home:
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| Our Maple tree we planted a few years ago. How can you look at that and not get Zenned? |
Bonus Pics
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| The Lion Queen! |
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| Our nurse, Kelsey, from the 6th floor stopped by to trick-or-treat...or was it just to visit...I forget. |
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