Ninth floor, room 9314, 2:13 a.m.

WARNING: This is going to be a very selfish post. I'm tempted to not even post it, but I've been this honest so far in this story (my brother suggests maybe I'm being too vulnerable), so I might as well go on. I have these wonderful people who've read some of what I've written who talk about the way it reflects how much I love MG. I do love her. But I love me, too. It's the curse of being human, I guess.
And I'm as human as the next guy.


A guy wins the lottery, hundreds of millions of dollars.
"What are you going to do with all that money?" he is asked.
"Well,'' he says, "I look around this town, and I see all these people suffering. So many poor people, people without enough food to eat, or proper shelter. People on the streets, always looking for something. Everywhere I look, I see so much pain. I just feel that now that I have these kinds of resources, I'm going to do something about all that I see."
Impressed, the reporter asks, "You're going to use your money to fund or set up some kind of foundation to help all those hurting people here in your hometown?"
"No,'' the guy says. "I'm going to use my money to buy a house on a huge estate out in the country somewhere, so I never have to see this kind of pain and suffering again!"

The nights are the hardest part. Not only for MG, but for me. For all the progress she has made - and it's been phenomenal - it's easy to forget there is so much pain. She often says her left leg - the one that is attached to the hip joint that was completely rebuilt during the eight-and-a-half hour surgery; the one that had a pin inserted through the bone just above her knee so it could be placed in traction for the week leading up to surgery to pull the leg away from the damaged joint until she could undergo surgery - feels like a useless lump just attached to her body.
She has very little range of motion in that leg. The doctor has told me there is some nerve damage, that the nerves have been stretched. He believes that in time - maybe a few months, maybe a year - the damage will reverse itself. But while MG has complete range of motion in the right leg, the left one often feels numb, or cold, or screams with pain as, I guess, those nerve endings and muscles and skin begin to slowly come back to life.
And it's worse at night. I don't know if it's because during the day there are distractions, or just that at night she's supposed to be asleep but can't get comfortable, but starting about 9:30 every night, the pattern is that she'll get comfortable, sleep for an hour and a half or so, wake up feeling some kind of discomfort, and need for either her leg to be moved in some position its not ready to move into yet, or be massaged, or shift her body around the leg in an effort to find some kind of relief that just isn't there.
Yes, she gets pain medication, including muscle relaxers. That's the hour or two of rest she gets.
By 5:30, she's wide awake. Always an early riser, here in the hospital MG is awake by 5:30 and ready to, as she says, "Get the day started."
To me, 5:30 a.m. is still the night before.

As a result, I haven't had a full night's sleep since Tuesday night in Gulfport. Now I understand SB's exhaustion when I came back to Birmingham. When I left for Gulfport, MG was still in the ICU. The day I left she was moved to a private room, with a sleeping sofa, and SB spent the first two nights with her up here. It explains the 5:30 a.m. text I got from SB Wednesday morning asking if I was awake, followed by the 6:30 text saying "Mama wants to talk to you."
Since coming back to Birmingham, I have been spending the night (and most of the day) here with MG. And I'm feeling the effects of sleep deprivation. Tonight, in particular, I'm feeling like it's not worth lying down again, because I know I'll fall asleep quickly only to be awakened in a short time, kind of like those stories of prisoners being tortured with sleep deprivation where, just as soon as they go into deep sleep the guards wake them up.
Maybe I've suffering from my own version of ICU Psychosis.

Friday morning I went to the house to meet Greg, an old friend who runs a company that is taking care of providing us with a hospital bed, wheelchair, shower chair, and the other equipment we'll need when MG comes home (hopefully today, Saturday).
I went home early to try to catch 20 minutes of sleep, wake up to meet Greg and go through the house to talk about equipment and what kind of adjustments we're going to need. A friend calls to see if I want to get away for lunch. He's been keeping up with the blog and felt I could use some time away, and he was right.
Because Greg said he'd have the equipment delivered Friday afternoon, I go home to wait on the delivery. I take a chair and put it in the sunshine and sit outside soaking up some Vitamin D, and go to sleep in the sun for 30 minutes. But my phone buzzes constantly with text messages - friends, or SB wanting to know when I'm coming back to the hospital.
"No pressure,'' she writes. "Mama just wants to know."
So when the boys come back from where ever they were, I tell them what we need to do to get the house ready for the equipment delivery (which they take care of), and head back down to the ninth floor, UAB Hospital.
And now it's 2:37 a.m.

Because in this wing there is only one nurse for several rooms, the attention is far less than it was in ICU. MG remains hooked up to an IV bag, and at one point there is some kind of line occlusion and the machine starts this annoying three-note alarm. I hit the call button for the nurse and the same voice that you get at the McDonald's drive-thru says they'll notify my nurse.
The alarm gets louder. I see a place that looks like if I push it, the alarm might stop. After about five minutes, I push it. The alarm doesn't stop, but does get softer ... for a few minutes. Then it gets louder again. I hit the call button and tell the disembodied drive-thru voice, "If you'll just tell me what button to hit, I'll turn this off myself." That seems to get a reaction, because in about two minutes both our night nurse and another nurse come in to handle the alarm.
About 45 minutes later, the IV bag is empty. The alarm goes off again, and we repeat the process.
To be fair, this is the first night we've had this alarm thing happen. And the nurses here are fine and attentive. But when you were used to two weeks of ICU nurses giving practically one-on-one care, who responded immediately to any request, this is frustrating. The good news, of course, is that nothing in these rooms is life-threatening I suppose, which is why they give the nurses up here so many rooms and patients to be responsible for.

MG's foot is cold. She's wearing socks  which MG almost never wears  - and we put this contraption around her calf that automatically inflates then de-inflates, helping promote circulation in the leg. I rub her foot. I rub her knee. She wants her leg wrapped up tightly in a blanket because her leg feels so cold - again, something MG would normally never do. I ask if we need to call the nurse to see if there is some way to heat up her bed. MG says "no,'' and I understand we have no confidence we'd get any help. They don't have those pre-heated blankets here like they did in ICU. And besides, whatever they might come up with will take so long to get here that we're better off improvising. We decide to run a bucket of hot water, and I soak washcloths in the water then wrap her foot. It helps almost immediately.
She tells me to go back and lie down and go to sleep.
I don't want too, because it feels like rather than just get back into deep sleep and start dreaming again only to be jarred awake, I'd rather look out the window over the night lights of downtown Birmingham.
And blog.
It's 2:49 a.m.

MG is asleep. Tomorrow is our anniversary - 22 years of marriage. It will also mark the 22nd day in the hospital.
Fortunately, we're told we're going home.
I can't help but think everything will be better once we're home. Oh, we won't be away from all the pain and suffering; we'll carry that with us as we go, and deal with it for days, or weeks, or even months. I don't know.
But at least we'll  be home.

It's 3:03 a.m. MG looks like she's asleep. I'm wide awake now, but I'm an optimist. I keep telling myself that maybe this time she'll rest comfortably and if I curl back up in my blankets, I might get two or three hours of good sleep myself.
I have a feeling this is what people who are being tortured with sleep deprivation tell themselves, too.
Maybe this time ...

Sure enough, it's 3:08. MG doesn't want to disturb me. I hear her hit the button for the nurse.
"Do you need something?" I ask.
"No, the nurse will do it,'' she says.
The drive-thru voice says, "Can I help you?"
"I need help ...." MG says.
She doesn't want to disturb me.
But that's why I've stayed awake.
We get through this, and I think, "maybe this time ..."

It's 3:26 a.m. The alarm on the IV machine goes off again.
And again.