Exhausted

Mum said she wanted to sit on the chair for a bit while she had a late dinner. I took the opportunity to lie down in her bed. Quietly, softly in my heart, I "blessed" the bed and hoped that it will allow mum to rest well, and to recover so that she can leave the hospital. Unknowingly, I fell asleep...

It was half past ten when I woke up again. I fell asleep even though I just wanted to take a little nap before hitting the books. Mum didn't wake me up because she saw how tired I was. But I don't think I was tired, at least not physically, for much of the day when I went home to rest that's what I did: I rested, in bed, drifted in and out of sleep, watching reruns of my favourite sitcom online (Will and Grace) or listening to the radio. So lethargic I have become, just lying there in bed watching a comedy or listening to talk shows and drifting in and out of sleep...

I am tired and frustrated. And I am sure mum is too. After getting our hopes up to head home (and I even began taking a suitcase of things home this morning...) the doctor came back and said mum's latest blood result revealed a below average red blood cell count, and an elevated bile level. The former can be fixed with better nutrition and the 500cc of blood transfusion, but the latter is trickier. There may be a number of reasons why her bile level is abnormally high...

The ultra-high nutrition IV (which was yellow in colour, btw...) that the doctor gave her a day or two before her surgery may have given her much strength and needed nutrients, but it also causes strain on the liver. With time, mum's skin and the whites of her eyes began to grow yellower. Though the yellowing has faded a bit, her skin is still quite a sickly yellow tone. The liver may be damaged from having to process the high level of nutrients, and it may take up to three weeks for the liver to slowly repair itself... Three weeks! It could be that there is just an accumulation of bile after the surgery that did not pass through the normal way through the intestines, and so the bile is staying in her body and turning her body yellow. This blockage of the bile duct could be resolved with the insertion of a duct to lead the excess bile out of the body. But it sounds like a complicated (and painful?) procedure...

So mum today looks more sickly than before, even though she has been able to eat a bit more than usual. She also said she felt very cold, which may be caused by the blood transfusion. She not only looked and felt more ill, she also was sad not being able to go home as planned.

And where is my brother now? In another part of the country, away at a time when mum is again having complications with her health...

I really am tired...