Feeling Better today.

The night was tough. Really really tough, as in three hours of screaming and crying in pain tough because the nurse that came on for the night shift decided that since Caitlin was asleep at 11pm she obviously didn't need her dose of pain medication and it could just wait until she woke up...Of course that was an hour and a half later when the pain was outta control and then when she finally administered the pain meds she only gave half of the allowed dose and so it didn't even make a dent in how bad the poor kid felt. I explained to her that our entire goal during this stay was pain control and that she needed to give the entire allowed dose every two hours during the first 24 hours after surgery (just like the doctor/patient/parent plan called for) but she said most kids don't actually need that so she decided not to administer it. Her mistake. As a result I called her into our room every 15mins during the two hours until Caitlin could have another dose of medicine at 2:30am. She got to see first hand just why we require medicine whether it seems like she needs it or not. There were tears, gagging, crying, screaming, begging for 'just one little sip of water', and pleas for more medicine, something to make it stop itching and something to throw up in. That nurse didn't argue with me again and came in exactly on time at 2:30am, administered the entire 2.6mg of Morphine and the Benadryl to help with the itchiness and the Zofran to combat the nausea. Then came back at 4am also right on schedule with the Tylenol and again at 4:30am with the next round of Morphine....she also must have warned the new day shift nurse because meds were administered at exactly the two hour mark until the doctor came to do rounds and I requested that Caitlin be taken off of Morphine. They started her on Toridal (ibuprofen on steroids) and have been diligently providing it via her IV whether or not she's awake. Today has been remarkably better though. She initiated walks around the hospital, a trip to the play room, a trip to "Hospital School" and once the Morphine induced itchiness went away she was much happier. She started demanding food, even to the point that she got over her shyness to order the doctor to get her something to drink, and to take her yucky IV out. She was granted the first request, but the second will wait until she's discharged. No one wants to see a return of the pain monster so meds via IV it is until she goes home. Last night I was starting to worry that we wouldn't be going home until the end of the week at the earliest, but now I'm thinking tomorrow sometime. She was able to keep down an entire cup of grape juice and a popsicle so they finally (after hours and hours of begging) agreed to let her try a mashed up banana around 3pm. She was incredibly happy and promptly fell asleep. They sent dinner around 5pm but she'd been asleep for only an hour so we didn't want to disturb her, and now it's almost 8pm and they've taken her uneaten dinner away. Poor kid! She's gonna be so mad when she wakes up and there isn't any food for her:) Oh well the 'family lounge' is just down the hall and Ryan stocked the fridge with yogurt, Odwalla drinks and a sandwich for me, so she can just have some yogurt until the kitchen can send up whatever it is she wants. Hopefully she'll just sleep through the night and feel better in the morning.