Sunday hospital update

Hi! It’s Brittany again. Here’s my update for Sunday 12/22: Amanda got some rest last night, finally, after getting the Ambien in her system after midnight. I was up around 5 am and became vigilant about keeping the machine silenced. Amanda’s numbers are all out of whack and out of normal ranges – heart rate, blood pressure, and various other things it tracks. It beeps A LOT. It even signals for an apnea alert when she’s AWAKE! Yeah, you read that right. When it goes off (and she’s awake), I jokingly say to her, “Quit holding your breath when you’re sleeping!” Let’s just say the machine is very confused with all the heart stuff going on right now. There’s a button in the corner to silence it, but the silencing doesn’t last long. Don’t worry, it’s okay for me to silence it – I made sure to check with the Night Nurse. The nurses try to do it from their station but can’t get to it all the time. If something is really bad, the Night Nurse explained it will beep really loud and crazy and they will know to rush in the room. So, for a while this morning I hovered over the machine and continuously hit the silence button. Beep Beep Beep – apnea alert – I look to ensure she’s breathing and resting well – push silence button. Beep Beep Beep – low blood pressure alert – I push the silence button. Again and again and again hoping she can rest a few more minutes. 

The PLEX machine arrived bright and early sometime after 7 am. That was a surprise to us since the last session was just the previous afternoon. I think it was nice to get it out of the way though. After it was done, I made a coffee run and made some calls to arrange to stay another day. Back at the hospital room, we signed on to watch First Baptist Church of Brackettville on Facebook Live and got to see Pastor YJ give Amanda a shoutout right before they ended the live feed. That was a fun little surprise! 

We saw a couple different doctors throughout the morning and I pestered each of them about prescribing some Ambien nightly. The first said it wasn’t his department. So many of the people are specialized and only take care of certain things. We did have a doctor come by who could make it happen and prescribe it for every night. 

We ended up skipping lunch. It was a sad afternoon as Barkley and Amanda said goodbye to their puppy of 10 years, Zoey. Please pray for God to comfort their weary hearts. It’s an understatement to say it’s been a long couple days for them. 

I finally headed out around 4:00 pm to grab us a veggie pizza and a Starbucks refresher. 

After an EKG right at dinner time, we started a movie around 5:30. I brought a bunch of crafting items to keep Amanda and I entertained, but with everything going on we hadn’t started any of them. I did begin working on needle felting an ornament for her to commemorate her furbaby Zoey. After the day Amanda had, she wasn’t ready to try any crafts. 

The evening ended with a bit of chaos around the Ambien again. I harassed 3 different doctors throughout the day, asking and then confirming they would get it done. Two of them confirmed the Ambien would be ordered… yet by 8:00 pm it wasn’t in the system. Thankfully, we had the same Night Nurse again and she was on the case. She figured out who to call and pestered them until we got it ordered and on file properly. I’m thankful to God for these small wins, the right person at the right time. Amanda’s Night Nurse the last two nights has been wonderful. 

Please continue to pray for Amanda to get all the rest her body needs to heal.