What More Can One Day Bring?

Rather than go to Parker's apartment to do laundry and have a shower today, I sat by his bed with my heart in my throat fighting back the tears as I watched him sleep. Early afternoon he had what they are calling a "non-neurological" narcotic related seizure from all the morphine and diladin (sp?) that he is on.

I had been writing a query letter to an agent about my book, remarking in my mind about how peaceful and quiet Parker seemed and how long he had slept without getting agitated (about 45 minutes) when it happened. To describe it isn't necessary, but if you have ever seen anyone have a grand mal seizure, it was very similar to that. The difference being, although he was unresponsive to me during the episode, once the Critical Response Team came he was able to snap out of it completely.

But let me tell you how scary it is to be the parent of a patient who has the CRT people running down the hallway. Parker came to with 7 people standing over him, most he'd never seen before, shining flashlights in his eyes (which had rolled back during the episode), running here and there, bringing in noisy equipment, asking him crazy questions, and with his mother standing in the corner trying to stay out of the way, trying desperately to look like nothing was wrong, but in truth being the same shade of green as the contents of his stomach.

All afternoon when he would wake up out of his drugged sleep, he would tell me with his dry, cotton-mouth speech about the people in his dreams who are also in the hospital and who also can't figure out how to fix what's wrong so they can go home. Some of them are NFL players, others are characters from SCRUBS. When he is awake he knows they are not real, but says that when he is asleep they all talk about how everyone else thinks they are not.

I think we need to find an alternative to narcotics.

This picture is the view from the hospital room. I just thought the clouds were especially interesting today.