What an amazing difference a day makes. Dad had a much better night last night, with long stretches of sleep in between nurse visits to check his vital signs.
Even though its gotten less traumatic in recent years, he has always had an aversion to needles. Obviously, there is a lot of poking and prodding and puncturing associated with this most recent event; he's been too pitiful and weak to protest much in the last couple of days when they've approached him with this injection or that.
But the lab vampires are ridiculous, with three blood draws yesterday alone. Like I said, he was just not lively enough to be fractious about it then. But when some poor lab tech showed up at 4 a.m. this morning wielding her syringe and a bunch of colletion tubes, he told her to take that damn needle and go away. I do think he is feeling a tad better.
As an aside - the folks at UT Medical Center have color coded the scrubs for all the various nurses and technicians. Respiratory therapists wear brown, physical therapists wear purple, nurses wear blue, the nursing assistants wear green, and the lab folks wear - you guessed it - bright red. There's just something wrong with that.
He has had some terrific nurses thus far; Dana is his night shift RN, and Debby is the day shift nurse. Both are gentle and efficient and genuine - none of that leg-patting or talking to him like he's a toddler. They've also been exceptionally kind to me, and everybody knows that there's usually no love lost between nurses and family members.
Did I mention that I am so glad to be here?
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