Hannah vs. Dad and the PCMC Nurses

I've been thinking back on our visit over the weekend and thought I would post an experience that shows how strong Hannah is even after being asleep and on her back for 2 weeks, not to mention the brain trauma and broken bones.

We were all in Hannah's room on Sat hanging out (probably not good for a TBI patient to have all those people in the room at the same time) when all of a sudden four nurses, male and female, came into the room. I knew something was up so I gathered the kids and made a beeline for the door. Unfortunately, Eve was stuck in the corner of the room and couldn't get out before they started to change Hannah's feeding tube which didn't go as smoothly as they thought it would. They were taking it out of her intestines and re-inserting it to go straight to her stomach. She was sitting on Dave's lap in the chair and he was trying to hold her still by putting a wrestling move on her known as the "straight jacket". Growing up with two large, older brothers, I had the opportunity on more than one occasion to be caught in this hold. Not fun.

Anyway, the procedure was not going well as the line was getting coiled up her nose and she was in extreme pain. She was thrashing about trying to get free of Dave's hold and Eve said after a few minutes of Dave holding on as tight as he could, he couldn't hold on any longer. He was sweating and his face was red. Hannah 1, Dave 0.

The nurses stopped what they were doing and tried to regroup. They put her on the bed and thought it would be a better idea for each nurse to hold an appendage. Hannah wriggled and kicked and hit and knocked over an IV stand. Hannah 2, Nurses 0. They added Dave and Billie to the line-up and were finally able to get the feeding tube into her stomach. Hannah 2, Nurses and Parents 3.

Hannah was not happy. We still don't know why they wouldn't have sedated her to do something like that. The male nurse couldn't believe that was the same girl that he had taken care of one week prior in the ICU when she could barely squeeze his finger.