ICU Pyschosis

Ever hear of that??? I never had, but that's what Sumana had last night . . . scary!!! I got a call at midnight that Sumana thought she was at home on the couch and that I was upstairs sleeping. (???!!!) When I got down there the nurse had some other wacky statements to share. She seemed to calm down when i got there, but she still didn't know where we were. About an hour later, it all changed and she got VERY angry and agitated and start pinching and thrashing around. I was not her mommy and she was not my honey. (That's right from her mouth!!) That continued throughout the night. She kept growling, 'Let's go back NOW!!'. (where, she couldn't tell me).

It was pretty funny at first, but quickly became kind of scary. I went from laughing to crying . . . (I think I was the psychotic one!!!) The doctor explained the effect of sleep deprivation (who would've thunk that one is not sleeping when sedated???!!!). Sumana had a combination of days and nights being mixed up, withdrawal from her pain meds and overall disorientation. Thankfully, when the sun came up, she was much better. Also, at the same time she was finally allowed to get some morphine . . . she had only had Tylenol throughout the night because I told the staff i didn't want to go through the withdrawal twice!! Poor kid!

Greig came to the rescue early and right after the doctors made their rounds, I headed upstairs and got 3-4 hours of sleep!! What a relief!! We had lots of visitors today, greatly in part to one of our neighbor's sons being just a few doors down the hall from us. Those visitors got 2-for-1 day!!!

With all of Sumana's thrashing around last night, she pulled her chest tube out part-way. The surgical team completely removed it this morning, but there continues to be a lot of drainage. She also developed a lot of chest pain on the right side this afternoon, so they took a THIRD chest x-ray to see if the fluid was building up again. The oddball result is that her LEFT lung is showing signs of collapse!! UGH!!! So, she's going to get cough assist workouts every 6 hours, cupping and PT every 2 hours (4hours at night). Hopefully, this will help her out. But, I anticipate another LONG night. She is dealing with a lot of pain and we're trying to manage it wisely without wiping her out (she doesn't breathe effectively when she's sleeping).

The positive for today are that Sumana kept her ventilator off, got the chest tube out and got her feeding tube out. She also had grilled cheese, tomato soup and chocolate pudding for lunch. 15 oz. of apple juice as a snack and a chicken finger for dinner. She also has increased her sitting angle to around 40 degrees. So, even though she's not out of bed yet, I guess she made a lot of progress today. Please pray that it will continue and that as she starts moving around, her lungs will clear out. She's giving us all a run for our money!!!