Wednesday Freddie (and me) ended up spending another night in hospital. His blood pressure was high (side effect of the steroids) they had to monitor him and give him something to bring it down. It worked. We came home around 30 hours after we first arrived. That night was hell though, Freddie Cheese didn’t sleep. The ward sister asked me, about 3am, whether he is always such a terrible sleeper. What I really wanted to say ‘no, he’s never been a terrible sleeper, until a month ago he slept 10-12 hours every night, now he’s pumped full of steroids, in hospital and you’re doing his observations every fucking hour – of course he can’t bloody sleep’. What I actually said was along the lines of ‘no, it’s only a recent thing’.
Funny thing about hospital is that it quickly becomes home from home. Familiar faces. Once Freddie’s name was up on the board nurses who had looked after him three weeks ago were coming in to see him, see how he was, why he’s back ‘so soon’ or ‘already’. I guess they thought they’d see him again but genuinely didn’t think it would be so soon. The response was lovely as everyone commented on how much better he looked, how chatty he was or how he was actually interested in people instead of staring into space. I think James and I have been trying not to get our hopes up with his progress but it was very reassuring to hear.
Anyway, he was discharged Thursday evening. He’ll be having a nurse visit the house every day now to check his blood pressure (until he’s off of his meds), just to make sure it doesn’t creep up again. He’ll be completely weaned off of the steroids over the next week. His immune system will take a couple more weeks to get stronger. I can’t wait to socialise again!! My heart goes out to people whose children are on steroids long term. It’s hard being housebound, restricting social contact and it feels completely unnatural double checking people you are seeing haven’t had colds etc. Not for much longer though!
Please don’t let him relapse!!
