It is 7 pm on My Little Darlin, PT day 17. I have just left SICU room 203. I left there being reminded of just how serious and precarious My Little Darlin's situation is. I walked in for the 6 pm visit. No matter how optimist a picture I imply with any post, until she is up and about she is not safe. The care given by the nursing staff is excellent and it is very obvious the nurses taking care of Jan are genuinely concerned and are pulling for her. There is a large sign at the SICU entrance giving the number of days without one of their patients getting a pressure sore. To prevent these the immobilized patients are turned every two hours without fail. I walked into Jan's room just after turning. Her blood pressure was elevated and she was breathing very rapidly apparently from the pain and discomfort of being moved. Being hit and run over by that car was a terribly brutal impact. The turning has to be done. I can not explain just how hard it is to watch my helpless Little Darlin lying there, not moving except for very shallow attempts of rapid breathing. Her eyes are closed but frequently there are tears making me think she feels the pain. I hope she does not remember this. She does not know I am there but I try to sooth her by caressing her head and face. I tell her how much I love her but none of this has any effect. My pain of watching her struggle like this is almost unbearable. It causes me to tear up at her bedside. I am a big baby and do this often when I go in that room. I have my suspicion of why/what happened on MS50 17 days ago. I am normaly a very passive person however I get angry when I think about what was done to my solemate. It was senseless. I will not forget. It still hurts as bad as it did the first day. At the moment I am in one of those low points on the roller coaster.
My Little Darlin, PT day 18
I use Jan's laptop since this happened. Everything I post is on her Facebook page. Did not know much about Facebook before this. Wish I had not had to learn. I have mentioned previously the way Jan felt about animals. She loves all animals, dogs especially. We currently have four and they are part of our family. We have had as many as six. They are all where ever they want to go dogs. There is Clyde. He is a big beautiful golden retriever mix with a very sweet disposition. He is clearly a mama's boy. He was a puppy of a stray that our friend and Veterinarian Michael Fromm (now in Waco, Texas) had. There is Sydney. She is simply a yellow dog. She was a stray found wandering in a neighborhood. She is a nervous nellie. Terrified of thunder and scared of the dark outside. Her favorite pastime is sleeping all day in our bed. She loves to be loved on. We have Chloe. Found her on a rural road. She is purebred Whifdowa (white fluffy dog with attitude). She is the smallest of all but thinks she is a Pit Bull and boss dog. If you could see a dog roll their eyes because they thought something was ridiculous this is the look our other dogs give Chloe. When we moved to Starkville the house had a large wooden deck out back. Chloe spent the first two weeks under it. She eliminated seven opossums. We have had squirrels in the attic. Let her in and the squirrels are history. She is bad to the bone and she thinks it. Our most recent dog is CoCo. One day we were in our bicycle shop. It was a very pleasant day so we had the door open. CoCo comes trotting in like she owns the place. Goes up to everybody, says hello and leaves. Looks like she is always smiling. A little while later she comes back in says hello again to everybody then goes back out. She was still around late that evening and Jan brought her home. No answer to ads in the paper meant she became part of the family. She likes to bring trees in the house through the dog door and turn them to mulch. She is also a couch destroyer and is an excellent newspaper shredder. Thought she was an Australian Kelpie, the vet says "what you have here is a dog". She is now part of the family. A couple of years ago I was out for an early predaylight run. I found and brought home a young chihuahua that was running down a very busy street. He had no collar. Jan ran an add in the paper but before it went out signs were put up obviously done by a child with the dogs photo. She called the number wanting very much to reunite the dog and child. The childs mother came to pick it up and was very indifferent to the pup. She was the one who "put him out the front door to do his business and forgot ". Jan immediately realized she was not a caring or responsible dog owner (a dog is part of your family). She gave him to her but worried. It was several days later when I found him again out in the same street. This time Jan put him on the "underground railroad" and got him out of town. She did not call the owner again having proven a second time she was not a caring owner and Jan feared for the pup. Signs again done by a child went up and Jan began worrying about the child not knowing that his dog was ok. I told her to keep it quiet but she called the woman without identifying herself to let the child know he was ok. The woman easily figured out who it was, came looking for the dog but Jan would not give it up. She was protecting him. The woman filed charges, a police officer that she knew came to see her. He did not want to but told her that if she did not give back the animal she would be arrested. She reluctantly agreed but only after the woman agreed to several demands Jan had to ensure the pups safety and care. Otherwise she would have gone to jail to protect that dog. Jan has www.theanimalrescuesite.com set up as her home page. Every time she/I log on this comes up. There is a "click here" icon that every time it is clicked the site sponsors donate food for rescued animals. Many people have asked what they can do to help. She would not be more pleased if everyone clicked this each day for the rescued animals.
She had no major problems last night. She continues to oxygenate very well. They did increase her oxygen late yesterday to 50%. That was when I was in there and she appeared to be struggling with discomfort. Seeing her like this is already hard, seeing her struggle breaks my heart even more if that is possible. This is what put me in the funk I wrote about last night, it does not take much under the circumstances. Her GI tract is still slow. They are using her PEG tube for feeding but this had to be stopped this morning because her stomach was emptying too slow. I have to believe It will get better. She continues to have temperature spikes. Still do not know why. I just wish this would stop. Her weight has gone down several more pounds so she is still doing a good job of getting rid of the excess fluid (TIGT). She still has elevated bilirubin (one of many liver tests) but this is down a little. This gives her skin a slightly yellow color. It hurts so bad seeing My Little Darlin like she is, I will be glad when this nightmare is over and she is safe at home with me.
My sympathies to the family of Christina Genco, 22 years young killed while riding her bicycle by an automobile Monday in Alabama. Do not forget John Paul Frerer 18 years young killed last year while riding his bicycle by an automobile. There are many others out there killed or seriously injured and we must do all we can to prevent these.
WEAR YELLOW FRIDAY (HIGH VISIBILITY DAY FOR CYCLISTS)
SHARE THE ROAD
PUT THE CELL PHONE AWAY WHEN DRIVING
GET OFF THE COUCH
WWW.THEANIMALRESCUESITE.COM, hit the click here button
I Love My Little Darlin, she is my solemate and this hurts,
David
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