A good nurse can make your day so much easier...

It's Friday!! YEA!! And in other good news, in case you haven't noticed (or seen my post from earlier today!) THE DONATE BUTTON IS BACK!!! PLEASE see my post about it. It's on the right in the Blog Archive :)
I don't have any fundraiser updates. The search is still on for a venue for the Game Night/Poker Tournament. If you have any tips or ideas about any fundraiser currently in the works or something entirely new, don't hesitate to bring it up! If you don't want to comment here, you can message us on Facebook.
I found all of these crazy (and cool!) stats about our blog today. We've had viewers in the US, Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Mexico, Switzerland, Belgium and India!! How cool is that?!?!
The weekend is here and I'm about to write today's post... I've been thinking about weekend blog posts. I know weekends are busy for us. Faith should be starting her ice skating lessons next Saturday and there are lots of family birthdays coming up, so we will be running non-stop. So, I don't think I will be writing on the weekends. Fridays yes, Saturdays and Sundays no. Since WE are so busy every weekend, I'm sure you all are too. Also, I need a break. I don't know how authors write as much as they do. This isn't a story that I have to make up or enhance in any way and it's still hard for me! I even had a case of "writer's block" yesterday and I'm not even sure how that's possible since all I'm doing is remembering and typing it out. The memories were there, but the sentences weren't flowing. I found myself distracted easily and the post took me much longer than it really should've. Breaking on the weekends just seems like the best option all around. So that's what I'll do. I hope my page views don't go down because of that. I'm sure the weekend is the time some people get caught up on reading (I have a book waiting for my attention currently) so I hope I get lots of views and shares even though there won't be anything new posted.

Ok... so... back to that medical center.
The next morning Dr Hyder showed up bright an early. He had checked on Danny the evening before and was happy. And he was happy this time too. It was Thursday, ONE WEEK from the day this all started.  Everything looked great, Danny was already healing well!
"The labwork should be back in a couple days. You can't eat anything until we are sure your bowels are working properly, in the meantime, how are you feeling?" He can't eat ANYTHING?!!?! This is a joke, right? He's gonna be skin and bones by the time this is all over. Poor Danny...
Danny was feeling fine. Some pain that was normal and that he felt he could handle. Dr Hyder advised him to try to stay ahead of the pain. And then he was off to make his rounds with his other patients.
I spent most of that day in the chair that I could scoot really close to Danny's bed. I wanted to be as close as possible without jostling him around.
We had the tv on some news channel and there was breaking news. Farrah Fawcett passed away?! What?!?! Wow, that puts things in perspective... It sucks that we are here, having to go through this all when we haven't even been married for two weeks, but my husband is still here. He is alive. He is holding my hand and can still tell me he loves me.
The day nurse was another great one. I remember Danny mentioning that he hoped we could always have the same day nurse and night nurse since we'd lucked out with some great ones... I should've had him knock on some wood!!
That day there was another celebrity death... Michael Jackson... I still remember NOT believing it. I sent a text to Wendy, she's such a huge fan. Danny and I spent the rest of the day watching all of the TV specials on Fawcett and Jackson. Some friends and family came up to visit, and it felt like a very lazy day which was fine with me.
That night was the worst.... THE WORST... I got back from letting Kira out and the doors were shut and locked. I had to go in through the emergency room and then didn't know where I was. Ugh, I just wanted to get back to Danny!! When I eventually got back to an area I recognized I seen that our favorite night nurse had the night off. Well, that stinks... I'm sure this nurse will be great too though, since they've all seemed so wonderful here...
Ha!!! Sometimes being optimistic just sets you up for disappointment!!
That night Danny couldn't get comfortable. He was shifting around, trying to do SOMETHING different so he could relax. He was sore and in a bit of pain from the incisions but he was REALLY suffering from back pain.
"I've never felt like this before. I need something. I don't know what, but I need something." I hate seeing him like this... I wish I could take some of that pain away myself... Where is our nurse?! We paged her five minutes ago and she only has one other patient.
I opened our door and looked down the hall. Our nurse was assigned to us and the person across the hall from us. Her door was open and she was snoring. Okay, the nurse isn't in there. Maybe she's in the bathroom... The lady that answered when we pushed the button said our nurse would be right there... She's gotta be in the bathroom or something. If she was on her lunch break they would send a different nurse down. Our favorite night nurse explained that all to us... So why are we waiting?!?!
Eventually our nurse showed up. I was so mad, we'd been waiting 30 minutes! Thirty minutes of EXTREME pain for my husband.
"What seems to be the problem?" Uhhhh, did nobody TELL you what was going on? Hmm... maybe not.... maybe this long wait is the lady at the desk's fault...
"He's in some serious pain. His back is killing him, really. He can handle pain really well, and he's been hitting the pain medicine button on time, and he shouldn't be feeling like this..." She had Danny sit up. She touched his back in different areas, trying to pinpoint where the pain was radiating from. She decided it was his lower back, just like he'd said a moment before.
"Okay well... Umm... I'll be right back." Deep breaths... Do not blow up on this nurse that seems completely clueless.... She may come back with a solution.... If she ever comes back. WHERE IS SHE?!?!?! She has been gone for twenty minutes... Twenty more minutes of pain for my husband... Oh, I hear her shoes... here she comes...
"Okay I checked your chart and you're getting the right amount of pain medicine... So... I brought you this." She handed me a cup, the kind of cup you put ketchup in at fast food restaurants... a cup of flippin' LOTION. Lotion?!?!?! ARE  YOU KIDDING ME LADY?!?!?! The look I gave her must have spoken the words I didn't.
"It's to rub his back." RUB HIS BACK?!?!?! You think this can be solved with a FLIPPIN' BACK RUB!!! And off she went... To do who knows what...
I was beyond furious. I was so mad I was shaking and in tears. You know I've reached my boiling point when I've got tears. Because, just like everything else, anger makes me cry. And crying out of anger just makes me more mad. I dumped that cup of lotion into my hands and walked around the bed so I could reach Danny's back.
"Babe you don't have to do that, it's not going to help."
"The nurse said to do this, so I'm doing it. I know it's not going to help, you know it's not going to help, but that lady seems to think it will. Maybe there's something SPECIAL about this lotion..."
I rubbed his back, and guess what... It didn't help. Danny was tired of trying to get the nurse to understand that the pain was seriously intense. I was tired of talking to a brick wall, oh wait, that brick wall WAS the nurse. We both just decided to try to sleep.

The next morning I woke up to Dr Hyder's voice. He was trying to be quiet but that voice was what I had been wanting and needing to hear since Danny's pain started so it woke me up. Danny was already awake and Dr Hyder was checking his incisions and his chart. They both seen me sit up and they both told me good morning.
"Mornin'. Dr Hyder, Danny was in some serious pain last night... It's his lower back. It's not normal. He never ever has back pain, not like that." I decided to leave out the fact that the nurse had told me to RUB HIS BACK and that would make it better.
He had Danny sit up and he pushed around on his lower back, to pinpoint where the pain had been coming from.
"Hmmm. Nobody called me about that. The pain is likely from tension in the muscles from the surgery." He explained how he was laying on the table during the surgery. They had to tilt the table a certain way and they did this and they did that.
"It's quite normal after this type of surgery. I'm adding a muscle relaxer to the list of medications so its there if the pain comes back." IT'S QUITE NORMAL?!?!?! It's normal but this nurse didn't think to call and get an approval for a muscles relaxer??? Ahhhh, we better never have that nurse again!! Oh look who it is...
The nurse walked in, seemed a bit startled at the sight of Dr Hyder. I'm not sure where she was when he came in, since her desk is right outside of our door and he would've walked right past it, and I could see she didn't come out of the room across the hall.
"Good morning Dr Hyder. While you're here, Daniel was experiencing some back pain last night. I gave them some lotion so she could rub his back but that didn't seem to help." Ha!! The look on Danny's face is PRICELESS.
"Right, well, they already told me about the pain. I've added _____ to his chart for that. It's from ______" I don't remember those big words that meant nothing to me, sorry about that. But I remember I was impressed that Dr Hyder's face didn't match Danny's.
Dr Hyder left to get on with his rounds of other patients and I told Danny that I would do anything I could to make sure we do NOT get that nurse ever again.
If you're reading this and you're a nurse, please understand I'm not bagging on this lady just because. I know quite a few nurses and I love and adore them and I do NOT believe for a second that they would suggest a BACK RUB instead of just calling the doctor, at 8pm, for such intense back pain! I could understand the wait we had initially, assuming she was in the restroom or otherwise on some sort of break. But the rest is not okay with me. Just writing about this today is making my blood boil again. A good nurse can make your day so much easier. A bad nurse can make your day SO MUCH WORSE.

Danny had more visitors that day. His brother and sister in law offered to let us use their laptop since we would be there for a while and could really use a computer. It was basically an uneventful day, but at least we had a good day time nures.
That evening I was prepared to see the awful nurse again, and I was prepared to tell whoever her boss was that we didn't want her! But, we didn't have to. WE GOT OUR FAVE NIGHT NURSE!!! Whoop whoop!! It's probably sad to be that excited over who our nurse is, but hey, I was!
"How are you guys doing? Did you have an okay night last night?" Hahahaha FUNNY!!!
We told her all about the night before. And the lotion and back rub.
"She gave you lotion? To rub his back????" I told her I never want to have that nurse again. EVER. She wrote some stuff in his chart and said she would tell her supervisor. We then chatted about the day before, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson. I loved this nurse.
"Ok it's time for your nausea medicine Danny... Why did they switch this IV?" The nurse the night before had insisted on one IV on each arm instead of allowing them to be linked so he only had one pole to walk around with.
"What the heck was she thinking?!?! Oh my gosh. I'm so so sorry about all of this. Let's get you switched back to the way you're supposed to be set up." It's so nice to have a good nurse again...
Danny got up to do some walking and made it quite far before getting tired. The back pain started to kick in and the awesome nurse gave him the proper med. We both got some great sleep that night!

I planned on writing about that Saturday also, but I have decided that it's probably best to write about the rest of our days at the medical center in a separate post. I didn't expect today's post to be as long as it is, I'm definitely not suffering from writer's block today!
As usual, THANK YOU for reading. Please come back on Monday for more, and also please share, follow, etc. :)