Hannah’s recovery from heart surgery | Day 17

Cautiously optimistic again

After we’d watched ‘Scandal’ last night, Charlie and I chatted lots more, watched a bit more TV and did lots of giggling.  It felt like a schoolgirl sleepover!  Even after we’d turned off the lights and I couldn’t keep my eyes open, we were still chatting for ages.

We both had a great night’s sleep and I got up at 7am to have a great shower (it’s a really good shower in our current room in parents’ accommodation!).  Although Charlie was staying in bed (and had gone back into a deep sleep by the time Simon went back there to get showered & changed), she woke up enough to have a bit more of a chat & giggle with me and even put moisturiser on my back.  Bliss!! I’ve not had anyone around to put moisturiser on my back (aside from one or two rare exceptions) since we came here before Hannah’s heart surgery.

When I got back to Hannah’s hospital room, Hannah gave me a strange look and said “What?!”

I realised I’d just been standing there, looking at her, with an inane grin on my face.  I was just so happy to see her sitting up in bed, awake & alert and looking SO much better than yesterday!

She’s been chirpy and cheeky all morning and her usual self.  They gave her 1l of fluid intravenously overnight, so the hydration has obviously helped her feel better.  She managed to produce a urine sample last night but still hasn’t had a poo since yesterday morning, so no stool sample yet.  But, hopefully that means the diarrhoea might have finally gone.

No more fever overnight.  Just some slight stomach cramps still.  She’s managed (in fact, not just managed, but requested!) a full slice of toast and jam and has had a bit of water again this morning.  She’s had a shower and is all chatty and lively.

Miss Khan, the surgeon, popped her head in this morning.  She said she’s not concerned about the swelling in Hannah’s chest at the moment as it looks very likely it is just a bit of serum.  She said if the tummy bug is out of the way, it’ll remove confusion from blood test results etc to give them a clear idea of whether there’s any infection there.  She seems quite positive that there won’t be any infection there and that they’ll be able to send us home.  She said it’s unlikely to be before Monday or Tuesday though, which makes sense as they need to give blood tests/cultures time to develop etc.  Better be safe than sorry!

A few funnies:

• Hannah: “I’m going to sue the doctors, because they’ve made my leg-hairs grow”.  Erm…you had your legs waxed before we went on holiday the 2nd half of July.  “Yes, but my legs weren’t this hairy when we came into hospital.” That was nearly 3 weeks ago.  “So?”
• Charlie this morning, going all ‘Ali G‘ on me because we watched a bit of ‘Ali G Indahouse‘ last night: “I is going back to sleep, innit!”
• Charlie always sleeps completely wrapped up and snuggled into duvet and pillows, so you can just barely see her face sticking out.  She also has quite a cute habit of adding “-iness” to the end of most words (chocolate-iness, annoying-iness, etc).  So, this morning, I said to her “Awwww you looked so adorable and snuggly in bed this morning.  I could only see your little face sticking out.” (I said ‘little face in a babyish tone of voice).  She answered “Of course you can only see my ‘little face’ (using the same babyish tone of voice for ‘little face’), it’s how my sleep-iness works!”
• Charlie phoned me to say that she was coming over to the hospital from parents’ accommodation and Hannah said “why is she coming here??”….followed by “Charlie is coming here on her own?? Are you sure she won’t get lost??” (Charlie’s sense of direction is appalling, but the parents’ accommodation is across the road from the car park entrance of the hospital!)

Evening wrap-up

As I’m writing this, Hannah and I have just finished watching X Factor (and she’s now put Xtra Factor on!).  We’ve had a great giggle this evening!

So, let me think & recap today:

Charlie came over from parents’ accommodation and the three of us watched ‘Ali G Indahouse’ from start to finish as Charlie and I had had such a giggle watching a bit of it last night.  This led to lots more Ali G talk from both girls, which had us all in stitches!

Hannah managed to produce a stool sample, at long last, but because the Clinical Support Worker that was looking after her was on her lunch, nobody came to collect it for ages!! So it stank the bathroom out for quite a while.

Cue classic Ali G line from Hannah: “I has smelly poos”

You’ve got to laugh about these things, really, because it’s pretty gross!  In any case, Hannah seems to be fine now from that point of view, so hopefully no more talk of poos on this blog! 😉

It was great to see Charlie and Hannah spending lots of time together, giggling and just being silly and sisterly, including Charlie having a bit of a meltdown when Hannah nicked a big chunk of her Steak Slice :))) I could have just sat and watched and listened with a big grin on my face all day!

I’m glad to say that, although she’s not eating lots, she’s started getting her appetite back and is drinking more again.

At 2pm, we saw one of the registrars on a very late ward round;  she said that as Hannah’s doing well and has no more stomach pain or diarrhoea and hasn’t had any more fever, we can get discharged tomorrow.  Fingers crossed!

Hannah was bright and bubbly most of the afternoon and I left her with Simon for a bit while I went to get a couple of hours’ sleep in parents’ accommodation before having dinner with Simon.  When Simon left her just before 6.30pm she was having a lie-down as she was feeling tired.

When I got there at 7.30pm, she was fast asleep.  The Clinical Support Worker came to take her temperature as, apparently, it had been 37.4°C not long before.  It was 37.8°C at this point, so Hannah was given more Paracetamol.   Not long after that, she woke up properly again and was back to her usual fun, breezy and chirpy self, so we were able to watch X Factor together, as we had planned.

I do feel, however, that it’s highly unlikely she’ll be sent home tomorrow now, as she’s had a temperature this evening.

I suspect they’ll want her to be clear of any symptoms that may indicate an infection and/or have clear results from her blood cultures & other samples that the fever is just related to a virus in her gut rather than anything else before they send her home.

It is all very frustrating but I’m just so glad that it appears to be nothing serious and that Hannah is doing as well as she is. We’ll get there, however long it takes.

Oh, I almost forgot:  In the ‘track the moving lump’ game, Hannah’s fluid seems to have completely moved to just above her right breast now, so she has a big hard lump there but no lump at all at the top of her surgery wound.  It’s quite amusing, really, chasing where this fluid is going.  Hopefully that’s all very encouraging as Miss Khan, the surgeon, did say that if it was pus it wouldn’t move around so much.

Hannah’s just settled down for the night.  Here’s hoping for a quiet and restful night for both of us and no further fevers!

Oh, I almost forgot to post a great bit of news:

Hannah’s LAMDA teacher texted this evening to let us know that Hannah got a Merit in her Grade 4 LAMDA exam, which she fitted in on the same weekend on which she was doing 2 performances of ‘Copacabana’ with New Youth Theatre (Doncaster). So proud of her!!!

I also had a fantastic bit of news re my work yesterday, but won’t say anymore at this stage as I don’t want to jinx it and it’s early days yet…watch this space!