Hannah’s recovery from heart surgery | Day 10

Another great day on Hannah’s heart surgery journey

Hannah had a good night after a great day that ended with us snuggling up in her bed watching “Educating Yorkshire: One Year On“.

She started getting restless around 5.30 this morning…toilet, water, bed up, bed down, tossing and turning, needing her eye mask to be in the dark…

…around 6.30-7am she said she had a headache. Took Paracetamol. By 8am she rated her pain 7/10 was deadly pale again with dark circles under her eyes and really sleepy / drowsy . The migraine’s back 🙁

She used the Imigran nasal spray, put her eye mask back on and we darkened the room as much as possible (not much).

I’ve left her with Simon while I get showered and do some stretches for my back at parents’ accommodation.

I hope the Imigran does the trick for Hannah. Fingers crossed!

10.30am
Just got back to the ward…Hannah’s kind of sleeping (she’s not fast asleep) and Simon says she’s still in pain, so even the migraine relief hasn’t worked 🙁

Poor babychick… After we finally resolved her non-stop migraines ages ago, the surgery seems to have kicked it all off again. I really hope it’s temporary and she doesn’t have to go back on regular Pizotifen. The side-effects weren’t great!

11.30am
The nasal spray Imigran has worked! Hallelujah!

Much better now. Waiting for x-ray to review progress on Pneumothorax….poor girl will be glowing radioactive by the time she leaves here.

The surgical Registrar has also been asked to come and look at her wound. It’s healing well, but in addition to the surgical emphysema at the top of her chest, she has a painful swollen hard lump at the top of her wound . Hopefully it’s just part of the healing process and it’s not hot or red or oozing, but they’ll get it checked out.

So far, we’re moving in the right direction again. 🙂

Comedy moment:

Aaarrrgghhh there was a great comedy moment this morning and as soon as I went to write it down, it had gone from my mind!

We’ve had another one though:

While doing crosswords with Nanny, tea strainers came up…quick as a flash, Hannah said “That’s what Mamma goes around collecting” (because I had the audacity to buy…or rather ask Simon to buy me while shopping…A new cool tubular tea strainer in Italy this summer). I called her cheeky and she said “What about the other tea strainers? You just put them aside. Don’t you care about their feelings? Have you never watched ‘Toy Story’?”

Afternoon

I’ve been to the hospital pharmacy and got some ointment for my eye.  I appear to have developed conjunctivitis in one eye (and it’s thinking about spreading to the other eye, I think).  Had to go for the ointment as the eye drops need to be kept in the fridge, which would be difficult at the moment while we’re in hospital with Hannah.  So, ointment it is.  I can walk around with a greasy eye for 5 days.   Maybe it’s not conjunctivitis after all but just eye strain from too much tiredness, too much time writing updates on Facebook and on this blog and reading on the Kindle App on my phone.  We’ll see.  Big picture: It doesn’t matter.  It’ll pass.

Hannah is having a good day since the migraine lifted this morning.  We bought her a puzzle/crossword book to supplement the ones Nanny got her in her magazine.  Nanny (Simon’s mum) came to visit and they sat for ages doing their puzzles together.

She’s had the x-ray. ..although a surgeon has seen it and said the air is all gone, we haven’t seen a cardiologist since this morning’s ward round so nothing has been said about the oxygen yet.

The surgeon came to have a look at the lump at the top of the wound. He said the lump is normal…caused by where they stitched. He said it’s not that large and should disappear over time but if it doesn’t in a few weeks, then it can be looked at again.

Simon and I had a fantastic Caribbean take-away from a place around the corner for our lunch (which we ate in the garden area outside the hospital’s conservatory). He had Jerk Chicken and I had the most delicious, tender, melt-in-the-mouth ‘Curry Goat’. There have to be some fringe benefits to being here! 😉

4pm
Just seen the cardiology Registrar.

Pneumothorax has gone!!!

No more oxygen for now, review tomorrow.  We’re in no rush to be sent home tomorrow…Given we were in a very similar position about a week ago, Simon and I would rather leave it until Sunday morning so she’s had over 24 hours without oxygen to make sure the Pneumothorax doesn’t reappear.

Meanwhile, although Hannah still says that her chest feels very ‘tight’ and that she struggles to take deep breaths, her breathing exercises are progressing nicely and she hit another personal best today!

Evening

We left Hannah for a bit while we went to Sainsbury’s, then got back to the ward in time for Simon to settle down with a ‘boy film’ of some sort on Sky Go on his phone, with headphones, so Hannah and I could watch ‘Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason‘ snuggled up in bed together before I left for a night in parents’ accommodation.

We took a few silly selfies and had lots of giggles while watching a repeat of “Grand Designs“.  Hannah then got tired, and as she needs to get plenty of rest to get better, I came back to Ronald McDonald House to have dinner, watch Bridget Jones and update my blog.  I could probably do with the earlier night anyway and if I’d stayed to watch the film, I’d have started this blog much later and be exhausted tomorrow!

Here’s hoping that Hannah has a good night and gets lots of rest for another great day tomorrow!