Day 2

Well, Finn slept pretty well for the his first night in the hospital.  I'm sure the anesthesia and hard day helped with that.  But at about 3:15 am the nurse needed to set him up for his IVs and get a blood pressure.  She was almost done when he woke up.  Drat!  And to top it off, he needs to sleep with the Pulsox (pulse and oxygen monitor) on.  To make sure it stays, we put on his toe and under a sock.  But he insists that "hurts" and so he made me stand next to the bed and hold his foot until he fell back asleep.  That didn't happen until 4:30.  And then at 6am an ENT resident came into our room to talk to me.  I was angry.  And then I got more angry as he walked out and slammed the door.  That ended our night--wayyyyyyy too early.

On the positive side, Finn woke up in good spirits.  He was bouncing and ready to play by 7 am.  It was nice to have my smiley happy boy back.  When he started talking to me I realized how little of that he had done last night and I figured that his throat must be feeling better today.

We started our day out with playing on his new floor mat.  We also pulled out a bunch of other cars.  Around 8am the nurses came in and then sent the RT in to start our long day of therapy.  After we were done with all of that, Finn wanted to go on a wagon ride.  At first the nurses told him he couldn't leave his room and man did he cry.  I set him in the window sill so he could look out and that appeased him for a while, but eventually he was back to begging for a wagon ride.  We talked to the doctors when they did their rounds and they said he was allowed out.  We were excited.  We took a good walk around the hospital grounds and for the first time I realized what a nice area this hospital is in.  Finn loved riding in the wagon and pulling it, too.  It was nice to get fresh air.

Happy boy!

The view from our room

Playing

Getting ready for our wagon ride.  I have to stop every two steps to fix his mask, though.

After that we had to come back in by 10am for more IVs and then we went right into lunch and our second RT appointment of the day.  Finn was so tuckered out by that point that he fell asleep within a few minutes of starting his vest.  It was just after 12pm.  I didn't blame him one bit!

We finished his treatments and then put him down in his crib.  At that point I went down to the cafeteria for lunch and brought it up to eat and watch a show online while he slept.  His nap did not last as long as I had hoped for, but it was decent.  It was after his nap, though, that day seemed to drag on a bit.  He had a blood draw at 2 and then nothing he needed to do until 4pm.  So we played around in the room a bit and finally ventured out in the wagon a little before 4pm.  At that time, we realized the playroom was open and that he could go in.  We only had 10 minutes before we had to be back in our room, but Finn was excited about all of the toys.  We checked a few out and then ventured back to the room.

A toy from the toy room

The afternoon consisted of more RT, dinner, and another blood draw and then it was 6pm and we were free until 8.  We loaded back up in the wagon and went outside again.  After a good 30 minute walk outside we came back in and walked the halls on our floor.  Our floor is the only floor where the CFers stay and there are several here this weekend.  In the room right next to us is an early-teenaged boy with red hair.  He seems very friendly and has waved and said hello to Finn every time we passed by.  Tonight there was a group of CFers (all girls except for this boy) congregated in a lounge-area playing cards.  (some had masks, some did not and I thought they might have been siblings of the patients....I wasn't sure)  We we passed they all stopped their game to say hello to Finn and ask him how he was doing.  He proudly showed off his new bandaid that he got when they removed his IV this evening.  (That's another cute story, too.  After the nurse took out his IV and then left the room, he spontaneously burst into song.  Not just any song.  It was a song from the new Disney show "Doc McStuffins" and the chorus says, "I feel better, so much better, nooooooowwww!"  Finn loves the "Nooooooowwwww" part and it was so funny that he knew that that particular song applied to his situation.)

After walking around and seeing the other CFers, we headed back to our room to get ready for bed.  We had an IV and RT time scheduled for 8 pm and I knew the vest would put Finn to sleep again.  The RT didn't show up until nearly 8:45, so by the time Finn had his vest on for about 10 minutes he fell over in his bed and went to sleep.  It took the RT, his nurse, and me to unhook all of his lines when they were done and leave him sleeping, but we did it.  And now I'm hoping for a good night.

It's been a long day, slightly easier, but long.  We're both ready to go home.  In fact, right before bed Finn was saying "One more thing, mama.  Go home!"  This morning Finn and Kai talked on the phone.  I prompted Finn to tell Kai he loved him, which he did, but the next statement was spontaneous.  Finn said, "I miss you Kai Kai."  It was sweet!  And of course, Kai responded with, "I know you miss me."  Ahhh.......I think we need to work on that a bit.  But it made me laugh.

I'm hoping tomorrow goes more quickly and that we don't bounce off of the walls in here.  Thankfully the weather's good enough to go walking.  I have a feeling we'll be doing that again.  I also hope there will be volunteers to open the playroom.  When we left at 4 today they said someone would be back at 6, but unfortunately that didn't happen.  Finn was a bit disappointed not to be able to go back in, so I'm hoping we can return tomorrow and pick out some new toys to play with.  Now that we know our way around, it'll hopefully be a tad better.