Room Service

I pick up the hospital phone and dial the extension for the cafeteria to order Harper some food.

The voice on the other end answers, "Thank you for calling room service, how may I help you?"

I chortle to myself at the implication - that this hospital is in some way like a hotel which provides room service to its guests. The florescent lights, the vinyl pull out couches that are supposed to pass for beds, the plastic pillows with starched cases, the beeping machines, the bumpy tile floors, the pump of industrial anti-bacterial body wash in the shower and the complete lack of privacy are the antithesis of a hotel experience. There might as well be signs on every door that say "please disturb."

And disturb they do.

Harper is somehow fast asleep in her bed with the sheets that have no mentionable thread count. I'm pretty sure they gave her a rash during our last stay. She was starving and after keeping down some applesauce, I dared give her strawberries and peaches. She threw them up. All over her IV. There was much screaming and writhing as we cleaned her up then some morphine which finally allowed her to relax.

It hasn't even been two hours when the nurse comes back with Harper's steroid.
My child screams as the nurse fiddles with her IV then she falls back asleep.
An hour later, there is a temperature and blood pressure check.
More screaming and then she is asleep again.
Two hours later we wake her up to try to get her to keep some food down so she can take an oral pain medicine.
And the night goes on and on in this fashion.

Harper perfecting her pouty lip after being woken up all night

I lay down between each interruption and try to drift off. The thin walls betray "guests" in other rooms being disturbed as well. The child next door has been crying for hours. I might be irritated if that hadn't been Harper just a couple of weeks ago. I feel so bad for that kid and his parents, knowing they are doing everything they can to calm him. I have a white noise app on my iPhone. I turn it on and put it next to my head, waiting for our next "wake up call."

I come to and realize it has been at least a couple hours with no interruptions. What gives? I realize the nurse must have gotten savvy and been able to do her checks without waking Harper up. That or Harper was so tired and drugged up she stopped giving a crap. Oh well, either way, I welcome the uninterrupted sleep.

Soon, light is shining through the windows. The nurse is back with more meds, a thermometer and a blood pressure cuff.

The doctors start to make their morning rounds. We are told that Harper's CT scan looks good and she will likely be able to go home today. I glance over at her, noticing her puffy eyes and groggy stare. Not likely I think to myself. Maybe if she had been able to get a good night's sleep.

Sure enough, I feed her applesauce and a banana and she vomits it all right back up. I sigh. Back to square one.

We are moved to a room in another ward with a higher nurse to patient ratio where we will be disturbed less often. Harper is taken off the monitors and her vital sign checks are changed to every 4 hours. We are both able to drift off and even though sunlight is pouring through the windows, we both manage to sleep for about three hours straight. Glorious, glorious uninterrupted sleep!

Then, something amazing happens.
We wake up.
I look over and see this.

A perkier HJ

She eats handfuls of cheerios and drinks some apple juice. I dole them out over a period of a couple hours and she keeps them down!

I call for the Nurse Practitioner and tell her we are ready to go home.
"I think she should stay for another night," she tells me, her brow furrowed.
I insist that she let us go, knowing another night of torture will do us both in. The CT scan is clear, she's eating, she's alert and I'm a competent parent I tell her.

An hour later, we're out in the fresh air on our way home.
I breathe a sigh of relief.

.......

She's alseep in her crib now - has been for almost six hours without a peep.

I took a long, hot shower with my moisturizing body wash, walked across my carpeted floor, climbed into my Tempurpedic bed, slid down into my 1000 thread count sheets and laid my head on my down pillows. My own personal hotel.

Screw room service. I'll be happy to wake up to my girls crying from their beds tomorrow morning. The smiles I'll get when I walk into their room will be better than any food they could deliver me in the hospital. I'll make my own damn breakfast, thank you very much!