When it comes to life in the Intensive Care Unit, as long as you remember that there are as many ups and downs as there are “blips” in those monitors we follow religiously, then your stay will be comfortable and stress-free.
If, however, you begin to panic at the sight of any deviation, as opposed to go with the flow of testing, adjusting, testing, etc, you will seriously burn yourself out.
Today could be described as such a day of ups and downs. Mainly because our daughter is such a wiggly little worm who KEEPS fighting her sedation, she managed to work loose and dig deeper with a few of the leads used to monitor her heart pulse which caused her heart rate to go a little nutso throughout the day. It started this morning as I got there at 6:30am where it was apparently beating at 220. After a couple of hours, they discovered that one of her leads had gone too deep/ close to her heart and aggravated her. The surgeon pulled it out by 1cm and her heart rate went back to normal. The pacemaker was put back on to help.
Then, over 6 hours (and a few tests later – ekg, echo, etc) later, they were experiencing some more abnormalities. After some adjustments and testing, it was discovered that her other leads had worked themselves up and aggravated her. It was decided that these leads (which were being used to monitor her heart pulse pressure) were not required and removed. Obviously, this was a little distressful to her and we had to wait for her to calm down afterwards.
Sure enough, about an hour afterwards, our little champion was beating at 135 on her own! 🙂
Do you get the feeling that she’s as anxious to come back home to us as we are to having her back in our arms? 🙂
And still, the weirdest thing about this whole experience for both Chantale and I is HOW comfortable we are in the ICU. I’m not talking about ICU-Psychosis, real though it may be. I’m talking about walking in there and staying there being as comfortable and “home”-y as our own home. The folks are great, everything is in control, we are as part of the daily and constant goings-on as can be. Our involvement just makes it that much special.
I guess it could be a lot worse, right? Imagine hating it, dreading it, worrying about it… and being forced to go in day after day. This is much more healthy. And, truthfully, it brings about continued feelings in both of us about wanting to be more involved in this field in some way…