Hospital-ity II

First of all, my very sincere thanks to all you bewdas for your overwhelming wishes sent for Xena. I'm seriously struggling with some of my writing deadlines because I had been in the hospital with Xena for five days, but I feel like I really owe it to you guys to update you that she is now home! After five days, most of which she spent in an oxygen mask, she was finally discharged yesterday. She still needs to be given the ventolin puff regularly to clear her lungs, and we have been referred to a specialist, but other than that, she's all active and jumpy and umm, monkey-like again.

As soon as we got home, I gave her (and myself) what I would call not a bath, but a hosedown to wash away the hospital germs, after which mommy and baby were off to slumberland. The bed never felt better. We were so exhausted and sleep-deprived that as soon as we touched it, we dozed off. I would have slept longer if I'd not discovered her sitting on my neck and trying to pry my eyelids open with a "Mommy, please wake up!"

In the evening, we couldn't wait to get out. I decided to take her to the park in the beach. It felt SO awesome to see the roads and trees and sand and water and everything else we had not seen in five days. However, I have to say that the hospital stay was not all bad. Xena had entertained me (and the doctors and the nurses and the interns and the nursing students and the cleaners... the list goes on) quite a bit with her antics and I thought I should do a sequel to my hospital-ity post from two years ago.

- Xena now says almost everything in full sentences and likes to provide running commentary of everything around her. Every morning, when the doctors did their rounds, she'd stand up in her cot and hold the railings of her cot like a jailbird and give me a full account of everything she saw. "Doctor aa gaye. Ek aur doctor aa gaye. Two nurses aa gayi." and what not. Once, a whole troop of about twelve came - doctors and medical students. She exclaimed loudly, "So many doctors??!" All of them burst out laughing.

- She soon figured out that the people in the white coats were doctors and the ladies in the white dresses with the colourful teddy bear aprons were the nurses. She would refer to them correctly. Once, she called the main doctor on her case "Aunty". The doctor was very surprised. "I am Aunty today?? Why??" She asked. Then I pointed out to her that she was not wearing her white coat, and that's why she was "Aunty" and not "doctor".

- Whenever the doctors would check her, she would play with their stethoscopes. They usually have toys hanging from the stethoscope to make it less scary for their patients, but Xena was more interested in the apparatus itself. You guys know I take devilish delight in teaching her to say long words like 'photosynthesis' so 'stethoscope' was no big deal. It always amazed the doctors every time she said, "Xena want stethoscope. Check mommy." And they would give it to her and she'd actually check my breathing, while they stood there laughing.

- Ditto with the nurses. They came over several times an hour to check her temperature, her BP, her breathing rate, her blood oxygen level, or to give her the ventolin puffs or other medicines. They always had stickers in their pockets and Xena loved them (both the nurses and the stickers). She would actually take the smiley face round stickers, put them on her forehead, and declare, "Bindi lagaya!" while the nurses exploded in laughter. She would ask them for more stickers, but after I told her that she can only have one because the nurses had to give them to the other children too, she stopped. The next time they came around, she took one sticker and giving the box back, said, "For other children".

- Two doctors once came to check her and she tried to offer them her stickers. She gave one to the first doctor and said, "One for doctor...", paused looked at the other doctor and said, "One for another doctor!" Later, her running commentary went, "Doctor checking, another doctor standing."

- One of the nurses had a tiny slipper-shaped keychain. While she was counting Xena's breathing rate, Xena took it out and actually tried to wear it on her foot! "What are you doing, baby??" I asked. "Xena ghoomi ghoomi jaayegi," she said. :')

- The machine that measured her blood oxygen level was low on battery and one afternoon, it started making a loud boing-boing sound with the display saying "Low battery". She looked at it in alarm and said to me, "Xena darr gayi!" I told her it was okay and that the battery was down. When the nurse rushed over, Xena updated her, "Battery down. Loud sound. Boing boing boing boing!"

- The nurses would use a supermarket-style scanner to scan the tag on her hand every time they gave her any medicine. After the first day, whenever the nurses came, she would simply hold up her hand without even looking up from whatever she'd be doing. It was hilarious. Sometimes she'd remind them, "Puff puff time?" and they'd laugh and say, "Not yet, baby."

- Within the first two days, she had learnt that if the machine beeped, it meant that she had to put her mask back on. Obviously, she hated the mask and kept trying to pull it off, but the moment her blood oxygen would go down and the machine would beep, she'd put the mask back on by herself. Sometimes she'd even say "Oy ma Gode!" (Oh my God!) when the machine beeped.

- The nurse who first gave her the nebuliser told her that if she didn't cry, she would get lots of candy as a reward. Viv and I were laughing our heads off. First, Xena never cries on the nebuliser, and second, they were trying to bribe her with FOOD?? Ahahahahaha!

- The kid with cerebral palsy was discharged a day before she was, and when he went home, she rejoiced too. She kept saying, "Baby ke poppy stroller lekar aaya, baby home chala gaya!"

- The first few times, I had to remind her to say "Thank you" to the doctors and nurses each time they checked on her, but after a while, she started thanking them herself. THe funniest was when one of the nurses woke her up at 3 AM for the ventolin puff, making her cry. She was crying by the time the puffs were done, and between her tears she said, "Thaaaaankyou, nurse." and promptly went back to sleep. The nurse looked like she was going to cry!

- There was a nursing student who would always come by to play with her. She always had her mask on like the rest, and I would identify her from the way she tied her hair all the way up in a bun. When Xena was discharged, she came to see her without her mask. Xena didn't recognise her! Oy ma Gode! Poor nurse looked quite heartbroken, until I gave her the mask explanation.

- She used to say "Thank you" to the cleaning lady who changed her bedsheet every morning. The lady was from China and did not speak any English, so I taught Xena how to say "Thank you" in Mandarin. The lady would always smile and respond. On the day Xena was discharged, the lady gestured to me that she wanted to take a photo of Xena with her phone. I said okay, she happily snapped away.

- At one point, I really started to run out of ideas on how to occupy her and keep her inside her jail. So I asked her, "What do you wanna do now?" She replied with a "Wipe chahiye." So I handed her a wipe and guess what she did?? She started cleaning her hospital cot! She even wiped her blood oxygen machine clean! Don't believe me? Evidence below. :)