Blessing

I am thankful for Julie's window.

Deal

I dread having my picture taken. When Nathan Morgan, a photojournalist from the newspaper, arrived at our house Wednesday afternoon I made a deal with him. He could take my picture if I could take his. He said that was only fair. Here he is capturing the moment Brian made Julie laugh.

NPO

Tuesday's contribution to the window series

O God, you are my God,

earnestly I seek you;

my soul thirsts for you,

my body longs for you,

in a dry and weary land

where there is no water.

Psalm 63:1 NIV

NPO is the abbreviation for the Latin phrase nil per os that means, "nothing by mouth." It's the code posted outside Julie's door.

It means no food.

No juice or Jello.

No water.

No ice chips.

It means dry.

Desolate.

Deserted.

It means questions, especially the ones directed at God and beginning with "Why...?"

The doctors suspect Julie's gallbladder and pancreas are causing the pain she has experienced the past week. To give her organs a break she is limited to fluid through her IV. Betsy also experienced a time of NPO when she was in ICU. When they took her ice chips away Betsy cried because, "It was the only thing I had." NPO is tough!

Sisters

Nearly every day a new doctor or nurse comes in Julie's room and looks at us. "You have to be sisters," they say, or sometimes they ask if we are twins.

The other day I suggested Julie slip off her wrist band and we could trade places. I could lie in the bed for awhile and none of the nurses would know the difference...at least until they drew my blood.

Julie didn't think that was a good idea. So instead we've braided her hair and stuck flowers in it, and I've rearranged her flower arrangements and we challenged each other to Wii bowling and golf.

Sunday sky

More by coincidence than planning I've embarked on a series of images through Julie's window. The sky was unusually blue and the clouds were fast-moving Sunday afternoon when I focused on the church steeple across the road. Earlier in the day I watched as parishioners parked vehicles and walked across the parking lot and up the steps into the building. It was comforting to know that the real world continues outside hospital walls.

Broken & bruised body update

Aaron has visited the eye doctor and the facial bone doctor and received good reports from them both. He shouldn't have long-term damage to his right eye and through there was damage to the sinus cavity it probably won't cause him problems.

Julie had a good report after her x-ray Monday. Her bones are in the right position. She will have another x-ray in two weeks and may be able to try standing then (she won't be able to sit because that would put too much pressure on her pelvis).

Betsy is recovering well at home. She has a home-health nurse who visits her and a machine that checks her weight, blood pressure and oxygen levels and transmits the data automatically to the doctors. Dad continues to wrangle with doctor's offices and insurance companies to schedule follow-up CT scans and x-rays.

Naomi's arm is healing well. She had stitches removed last Thursday--eleven from her arm and a total of seven from her leg. She visited a specialist last week. It appears that she has a pebble or piece of metal still in her arm, but her body may work that out itself.

Showers

Libby combs her hair in the living room after her shower Saturday morning.

I could volunteer to help Libby with her shower, but I doubt she would accept. Otherwise I've assisted the rest of my sisters in the shower over the past couple of weeks. I've also washed Aaron's hair.

Betsy came home from the hospital with a shower chair, which her injured siblings have used as well. Insurance companies generally consider a shower a luxury and balk at providing a shower chair. But a lady at the hospital secured one for Betsy, maybe aided by the fact that she has long hair.

Julie's shower arrangement is ingenious. She must lie flat on her back, except to roll to her left side briefly for her bed-bath or to have the sheets changed. The care facility has a shower bed. It's constructed of a plastic backboard supported by PVC pipe on wheels. Under the bed it has a basin to catch the water.

It takes five nurses (not counting the pregnant one who was only allowed to supervise) to transfer Julie to the shower bed. They lift her on her air mattress from the bed to the shower bed. The air mattress gets a shower too. Then they roll her to the shower room where they use a shower wand, blobs of shampoo and conditioner, and a stack of towels and wash clothes almost as tall as me. My job was to use a squeegee to move the water toward the drain so it didn't flood Room 13 again.

Once Julie's body and hair is clean, they wheel her back to her room where another nurse has placed a new deflated air mattress and clean sheets on the bed. Then the five nurses swoop Julie up on her air mattress and deposit her on the bed. They let the air out of the first air mattress and Julie rolls on her side as they fold and roll the mattress under her. Julie rolls to her back and they gently tug the first mattress loose. Then they inflate the second air mattress and Julie is clean and dry in her bed.

A shower is a luxury.

Sewing

Dad arranged for the insurance company to rent a heavy-duty bed table for Julie. Then he lugged her new sewing machine to Julie's room. Saturday he positioned the sewing machine on the table and Julie began sewing the binding on a denim baby quilt Mom just finished tying off. Julie's sewing machine has controls on the front so she didn't even need the foot pedal to operate it.