Day 16 - Restless Nights

Hospitals are not easy places to rest, especially when you’re sick, which I suppose would be almost always, if you’re sleeping in a hospital. First, you have your own discomfort to deal with. Of course, if you’re sick, you probably have discomfort of some kind. In Courtney’s case it’s been one after another – sore throat when admitted, surgery soreness, intestinal pain and blockage due to pain medication (kind of ironic), nausea from the chemo, dry lips and mouth from the chemo, more intestinal problems (this time from the antibiotics), fever, sore back from sleeping awkwardly and anxiety to top it all off. So, needless to say, she’s become very grateful for sleeping medications and pain medications and anti-nausea medications and anti-anxiety medications and anti-intestinal discomfort medications and chapstick.

Second, there are frequent interruptions. The nurses come in at odd hours to check your vitals, because, well they’re vital. They also come in at 4:00AM to take blood so they can have results early in the day. Your bladder interrupts your sleep, because when you’re hospitalized, you’re constantly administered IV fluid. And what fluids go in must come out. The IV pumps wake you up when their irritating alarm sounds because there’s air in the line, or the line has been crimped or the bag has emptied or for no apparent reason at all. Sometimes they just like to beep…but only at night.

Also, Doctors seem to enjoy visiting at the most inopportune times. In Courtney’s case it’s when she’s showering or sleeping. For instance, the infectious disease doctor decided to arrive this morning at 8:20. Now this may not seem so early, but when you have all the above conspiring together to prevent you from sleeping soundly, sleeping past 8:20 becomes very desirable. Anyway, the doctor didn’t seem to provide any new or valuable information other than to say it’s good that she doesn’t still have a fever and that he’ll be checking in on her from time to time, i.e. disturbing her sleep from time to time. But we’re grateful to have another doctor looking out for harmful infections.

So, other than the lack of adequate and sound rest and the aforementioned discomforts and a short nose bleed, Courtney had an OK day. I think, however, she’d rather be at home, Leukemia free. We can only hope for, pray for and look forward to that glorious day.