One more thing - or two...
Just to leave the day on a positive note...at around 7 PM Seddon and I left Sarah with Eliza to go out for our not-quite-ritual glass of wine and light meal. This moment together has proven important to us and probably to our sanity through all of this - a time to process the day and compare emotional notes.
Upon our return and a couple of hours after getting Sarah's pain management program back to medications that she could digest, we found Sarah "back at her desk" again - sitting up in bed with her cell phone beside her and her (borrowed) mother's new laptop (She says: "Mine is too slow"), managing her Facebook page, working on an essay again, while taking in the premiere of Mean Girls 2 (excuse me, but..ugh). Eliza and I left Seddon and Sarah sharing a girls' movie night.
The other thing I meant to add occurred a little earlier in the evening. Sarah was still very out of sorts and uncomfortable. We were waiting for her nurse to return with new pain management orders or, better yet, the new medication in hand. Shelby, her wonderful LNA (Licensed Nursing Assistant) for the day, asked if we'd tried Reiki to make Sarah more comfortable. Seddon mentioned that she had brought it up a week before, but nothing had materialized. Shelby said that she was a Reiki therapist and offered to treat Sarah briefly. (Picture skeptical me!) Five minutes of hands hovering over Sarah's chest wall incision had Sarah's eyes closed, mouth a little open, calmly breathing, almost asleep - she looked at ease for the first time in hours. The "nerve pain" in her right knee proved more challenging, but Sarah indicated that the therapy had helped that a little also. This was followed by a nice shower with Shelby's assistance and another Reiki session. She didn't look much like she needed any medication after all of this, but we knew she'd need something to sustain her over the longer term of the night. Anyway, I have always been open and non-judgmental (I hope) about all types of safe therapeutic approaches, but personally doubtful about those with a limited scientific basis. However, what I saw this evening was quite impressive!
Just to leave the day on a positive note...at around 7 PM Seddon and I left Sarah with Eliza to go out for our not-quite-ritual glass of wine and light meal. This moment together has proven important to us and probably to our sanity through all of this - a time to process the day and compare emotional notes.
Upon our return and a couple of hours after getting Sarah's pain management program back to medications that she could digest, we found Sarah "back at her desk" again - sitting up in bed with her cell phone beside her and her (borrowed) mother's new laptop (She says: "Mine is too slow"), managing her Facebook page, working on an essay again, while taking in the premiere of Mean Girls 2 (excuse me, but..ugh). Eliza and I left Seddon and Sarah sharing a girls' movie night.
The other thing I meant to add occurred a little earlier in the evening. Sarah was still very out of sorts and uncomfortable. We were waiting for her nurse to return with new pain management orders or, better yet, the new medication in hand. Shelby, her wonderful LNA (Licensed Nursing Assistant) for the day, asked if we'd tried Reiki to make Sarah more comfortable. Seddon mentioned that she had brought it up a week before, but nothing had materialized. Shelby said that she was a Reiki therapist and offered to treat Sarah briefly. (Picture skeptical me!) Five minutes of hands hovering over Sarah's chest wall incision had Sarah's eyes closed, mouth a little open, calmly breathing, almost asleep - she looked at ease for the first time in hours. The "nerve pain" in her right knee proved more challenging, but Sarah indicated that the therapy had helped that a little also. This was followed by a nice shower with Shelby's assistance and another Reiki session. She didn't look much like she needed any medication after all of this, but we knew she'd need something to sustain her over the longer term of the night. Anyway, I have always been open and non-judgmental (I hope) about all types of safe therapeutic approaches, but personally doubtful about those with a limited scientific basis. However, what I saw this evening was quite impressive!
You are certainly one of the most polite skeptics that I have ever met. :o) Nice that Sarah benefited from the treatment and that Shelby so kindly offered. As followers of science-ism we must be ever ready to note the large-ish gaps in our understanding of the universe and of our own bodies. This is hard to do sometimes in light of the incredible amount we've learned in a few hundred years of scientific experimentation.
ReplyDeleteI thought Mean Girls was hilarious! Tina Fey is a comic genius!
David, Hamlet had good advice for us scientist types when he was chatting with a ghost:
ReplyDelete"And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
As for Mean Girls, this was the 2011 Mean Girls 2 - no Tina Fey, completely different cast I think.