Sleepless in Thomasville

My girl has hit a brick wall and is HUNGRY!!!!
This is how we spend our day,

spend our day,

spend our day,

in the Child Life Room. Thank God for that room and the volunteers.

A very nice young man moved back home to help take care of his sick father and donates one day a week to come and take characture type drawings of the kids. No, she did not have to sit still for this. He did this as she went about her business playing.

When all else fails, call in the massage therapist (again) and then bring out the big guns, a music therapist.

Chaning could be heard rooms away playing the drums. This allowed her to get a lot of anger and frustration out because she is HUNGRY!!!

This is our trip to the gift shop today. We make this trip everyday. Today we left pouting. It was not because she didn't get anything. It was because she was HUNGRY!

Chaning has been waiting for us to take our cameras down to the tour of trees we take each day and take her picture in front of one. Before today, she takes pretend pictures in front of each tree.

This is her favorite tree, The Whoville Tree.

Okay, mom, it's my turn to take your picture with my camera.

How she can keep putting such big smiles on her face, I still have not figured out. Meltdowns did occur on our way back up to the room. Let's just say she strutted back down the hospital hallways with her lips poked out full force but she did look cute doing it. It's hard to get people to quit telling her how cute, darling, pretty, adorable, precious, I love your hairband, I love your slippers...when she just wants to be left alone today.

Today, our party room and time at the Ritz Carlton turned into a sentence that felt like a local jail. Disclaimer: I would assume. Never been there to know that for sure. It all started as a great morning. She woke up and pointed to her one-a-day gifts on the table and then we proceeded to get ourselves fixed up for a fun day at the playroom. Upon our return from the playroom, things went straight downhill. Chaning could smell food. Yes, food that I was hiding behind her bed that would constitute my lunch. Keep in mind, I am here by myself. That means you do not leave the room unless it is about a 50 yard distance and quickly return. Thank goodness the ice machine falls into the area. She quickly told me that she was hungry and started melting down. I'm sure that not understanding the concept of days, it is hard for her to keep believing me when I say that she can eat in so in so days.

Regular vital sign checks turned into hands being thrown up in the air and her whaling to the top of her lungs. This is the kid who has not had pain meds since day 2, NOTHING. She wanted the nurses to go away today and I just needed to respond to her every beck and call. We decided to take our walk downstairs which as you will read under the picture captions, that didn't help much at all. We came back and had the massage therapist do her magic. Things were great after that for about five minutes. She paged the music therapist. Things were wonderful after that so we decided to venture down for some more crafts. She did great and then when it was time to leave, she let everyone know she was not pleased that she had to go back to her room. They were handing her stickers, princess pencils, etc. She tucked her tail, poked her lips out and kindly returned to her room.

The nurses were informed that we were not attending game night and that it might get a little loud in our room. Chaning and I did more crafts on her bed and then when she became demanding again, her things were put up and she had to have a good cry. I just waved and smiled through the glass window to those that wanted to pass by and see where that loud sound was coming through. I'm sure they were wanting to see if I was sitting on her or something. She finally gave in and went to sleep around 5 p.m. Please take note that she has not had a nap in four days and has gone hard and strong everyday.

Aaaahhhh, this is a good time to order my dinner. Surely she will sleep for the 45 mins that it takes for them to deliver it and then another 10 for me to eat it. She was sleeping so good, the man delivers the food near the door, I proceed to sneak out from under her arm and she wakes up. You have got to be kidding me. I waited to see if sleep would come upon her again, NO. I finally decided the shower in the bathroom was a good place to sit in and eat my dinner. I lied a little!!! Yes, I did. I told her I was going to take a shower and sat in the shower and ate my dinner. Okay, this is where it gets really good. I finished my food, put my tray up and then told her I had to "finish" my shower (aka take a shower for real then). I go in and take a shower. The nozzle gets stuck on warm water. No, I mean literally stuck. I finished my shower, went out to the nurses station with my wet hair and told them that my shower was still running and that it could run all night for all I cared. I was going to dry my hair. They got a good giggle out of that. Yes, maintenance eventually showed up, walked in, turned the nozzle off (probably with one hand) and then said it's okay it was just stuck a little. I did everything but jump up and down on it with my feet (only because I couldn't reach that high). I nicely told him he needed to walk out of my room, throw some sweat on his face and tell the nurses he had to break out some pliers to fix that sucker.

On a brighter note, Chaning woke up happy from her nap, has only said she's hungry once and the best one of all is that tomorrow is day 6!!! That's a big WOO HOO coming from Rm 44 up in here. Please pray that tomorrow does not bring a full day of hunger and that the doctors find that she is doing well enough to eat Thursday morning and does not need to go back into surgery.