A Hard Day for Joy!

Joy and Mercy with Dr. Brandt



Mercy enjoying Mac 'n Cheese


It's been a hard couple of days for Joy. She was doing great up until yesterday. It started with her epidural machine running out of batteries, which it was on because we went for a walk and when we came back I forgot to plug it back in. It beeped and the nurses changed out the batteries got it all working again but forgot to push the "Run" button. So 2 hours later after her movie was over she says she's in pain and within 2 minutes was screaming with her little eyes bugging out and sweating all over. It took nearly 3 hours to get it under control.

The nurses call them "The Twins"


Mercy having fun at Radio Lollipop


Not even stickers brighten a 102 temp!

I took the girls up to Radio Lollipop last night and Joy just kind of sat there not doing her craft and thought it was because she just had Benadryl. She had a reaction to one of the antibiotics and has hives all over so they have been giving her that too. But when we got back we realized she had a 102 temp.
When the doctors found out this morning she had a fever, protocol says the epidural comes out. She had lost her last IV that was in her leg as it was all blotted and they pulled that one last night. But when she ran the fever they needed to draw blood and her nurse was thought it would be best to start another IV since she needed to poke her anyway. It was good she did so we could start the morphine right away after the epidural had to came out. It took all day to get that managed. She was holding my hand from 10AM until about 4PM and wouldn't let me out of her site. When she fell asleep for a brief moment I would sneak away for a potty break. Only to come out and find her little eyes bugging out reaching for my hand again. They finally got a morphine pump administered by 4PM and I got her to switch from my hand to her new best friend "Mr. Pain Button". She learned real fast what 10 minutes looks like on the clock and watched it diligently for the first 2 hours pushing every time the big hand got to 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12. Amazing what a little pain will do to motivate learning! We have been struggling with learning numbers, but hey, she knows them now!

Getting the nerve to pet the dogs



Mercy on the other hand has been on her own today. She would go to the play room for crafts, then the therapy dogs came to visit. I heard Dr Brandt yell down the hall "Mercy, come look at this dog!" She starts for the door and Joy starts getting out of bed to come see. I look out there about the same time Mercy did and this great Dane is standing there about as high as my waist. Mercy starts backing off and the next thing I know Joy is scrambling to get herself back in bed as fast as she can. Too Funny! It took a little coaxing but we finally got Mercy to pet "Gordon" the Great Dane. Mercy asks "He won't mind my skin black?" So, Julie with Child Life sees a black nurse and asks her to pet the dog so Mercy won't be afraid and her eyes start bugging out and saying "No way, I'm afraid of dogs" Then Miss Helen her black nurse assistant darts past as fast as she could since she was deathly afraid. Some help you guys are! Maybe it's a black thing and not a cultural thing as I had thought! HA!
Mercy has been wandering the floors all day and went up to Radio Lollipop by herself tonight. She came back with glitter from head to foot. I think they had a glitter fight up there. I told her it looked like Tinker Bell came to visit. She asked me "Who's this you call Tinker Bell?" Oh my, so much to teach them!
Well I'm off to Neverland!