After three weeks of hospital back and forths, I hit the wall today. I woke up stiff, in pain, found it difficult to move, and had absolutely no energy. It was like a flashback to my bad arthritis days. I had been feeling pretty good for a while now, but that wall hit me hard today. And it wasn't a good day for it to happen.
Today was hubby's birthday. We made sure the nurses knew ahead of time so they could make him feel special until we arrived. They did. Even embarrassed him a bit by singing Happy Birthday to him in the dining room during lunch time. Daughter and I stayed home for a little while to finish his special cake. Because he is on a renal failure diet (low salt, low potassium, low protein) we had to make a cake without eggs. So I altered a recipe and made a chocolate zucchini cake with no eggs and no oil.
Cake + sign for his room + laptop + DVD was going to equal a fun night for him.
But things changed a bit. When we arrived at the hospital he wasn't feeling well and had even skipped his physical therapy. An extremely low blood pressure but an extremely high pulse rate was alarming to nurses and doctors. Our celebration was delayed by an EKG. Thank goodness no abnormalities appeared (other than a fast heart rate).
Dehydration.
All the medications to get the excess fluid out his system worked a little too well. The birthday celebration was delayed even more as four (or was it five?) different nurses tried to start an IV on a man who was too dehydrated for one to take. An even longer delay as they tried different things - they even wrapped his arm in warm blankets for a while to try and plump up the veins. The things I never knew!
Since the hospital provided a pudding sundae with his dinner we sang Happy Birthday and let him blow out the candle.
