Stoic

Allison's Hospital Story

Not only were we on time, we were 20 minutes early to Children's Hospital, St. Paul. We didn't need to be there until 6 AM, but arrived at 5:40. Before the employees were even there. Grrr. Allison was all kinds of hyper and excited and I wanted to sleep on the couch.



They supplied Allison with her own hospital jammies and socks/slippers. Notice the big grins.
They let the kids choose a flavor of Lip Smacker lip gloss to paint the inside of the mask they use for the anesthesia. By the way, these really are Lip Smackers. They help cover the smell. Allison was set on Watermelon for days ahead, but at the last minute heard they had
Dr. Pepper, so chose that instead.

After Surgery:Everything went great in the surgery, which is awesome, except Allison had a horrid reaction to the anesthesia and/or the pain medication Loertab (sp). She was SUPER nauseated all day, didn't want to eat anything, drink anything, somber, definitely no smiles or joking around, and vomiting.
Children's Hospital has Bingo on Friday's only and she was able to "participate", although it was just about two hours after surgery. There was no excitement. She had me playing for her, until the end, when she was up to doing one card. She did win one Bingo. If you're wondering how this is done, well here ya go: they broadcast an employee on their hospital channel. It's pretty cute. We had to call in as soon as we got Bingo.
Even though Allison was super D duper sick, she wanted to go upstairs to choose her prize.
After the wheelchair arrived we went up to the third floor and she got to choose from an impressive array of prizes. She chose a Gabriella barbie from High School Musical 3. Just to let you know how yucky she felt all day, she never asked to open the box or even look at it until the next day.

Justin was able to stop in for about half an hour. This smile was one of the rare ones I'd seen since surgery.

Justin and Allison played a heated game of Checkers; she creamed him. I'd played her earlier and she beat me too. ;)

The nurses kept commenting on what a brave girl Allison was. One nurse told me that she'd heard about her and how "stoic" she was. I'm proud of my little girl. She's awesome.

There was a minute of silliness. She wanted to play with the Play Doh, but only had one hand available because of the IV. I made a lamb, but she thought it was so funny, she started giggling, I'm sure out of pure craziness and hysterics. It was great to see her laugh, even if for just a minute. Looking at the picture, it really was a bad lamb. Yikes!

Sleep was hard to come by. At least for me. I opted to sleep in the bed with her, instead of the purple vinyl recliner, so was kicked at, snored at, and heard lots of moaning all night. The poor little thing. My heart was breaking for her. I wish I could have taken away her pain. She was only taking regular Tylenol by the evening because of the nausea, so I don't think it was keeping her pain at bay much. 

Her heart monitor kept coming unplugged so the nurse would have to come plug it back in.
The morning brought a new Allison. She had an appetite and was even smiling! The nurse was so excited (and me)! We got home at 11 AM. That was one of the longest 24 hours of my life. (Well it was actually 29 ish hours). It felt like the never ending day.