Whatever happens at the hospital...stays at the hospital!

NOT!!!!!

Seriously, whatever you do...do not give my dad pain medication, a muscle relaxer and an Ambien before putting him to bed for the night. Trust me on this one!!!!

But, this is exactly what they did. And my dad was NUTS! He was talking in his sleep, although most of it was unintelligible. Well, all except when he screamed, "Jerk!" in the middle of the gibberish. Scared me to death when he screamed that in the silence.

Then, about 2 1/2 hours into the night, just as I had finally dozed off on that super-comfy couch bed/torture device. I heard a noise and looked over to the bed. And I thought to myself, why is there a guy in a neck-brace leaning over my dad?

UH.....IT WAS MY DAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (it only took a minute for my brain to catch-up and realize what was going on.) I jumped up and screamed, "Dad, what are you doing?!"
And he responded he was going to the bathroom.

My dad had not been allowed out of bed. He had not gotten up at all on his own, nor was he allowed to. (too much pain and too unstable) Well, he had decided he needed to go to the bathroom and he was going. He went right over the lifted bedrails! (when previously, he couldn't even lift his head to move his pillow)

So, he went and I got him back into bed, although he was quite unstable.

I scolded him and told him YOU CANNOT GET OUT OF BED WITHOUT HELP.

He promised he wouldn't. (liar!)

More gibberish, thrashing, noise from him. But, finally I dozed off again.

And I was again awakened by a noise. He was sitting on the bed removing the leg plumpers (to prevent blood clots). Again, I jumped up and got onto him. So, I helped him to the bathroom again. And when he was finished and we were almost back to the bed...he started to fall. I just grabbed him. (ok...all this jerking around after major back/neck/hip surgery is not good!) But, I got him back into bed without him hitting the floor. And this time, that really scared me.

So, I called for the nurse to ask a question about the iv....and I told her what had happened. She was not happy. So, she scolded him big time and set his bed alarm. If he shifted in a way that indicated he was trying to get up...the bed alarm would go off to alert us. (me in the room...and the nurses at the desk)

Well, he set that alarm off 3 more times in the next 2 hours. So, needless to say, that was the end of my sleep. (I got a total of 45minutes, plus 2 hours..broken up)

But, we finally made it through the night in one piece! But, we were both tired!

He got to go home on Thursday night....so he's doing just fine. Thanks for everyone's calls and emails checking on him.

As of yesterday, he's still moving slow. His voice is getting a bit stronger, but not completely back to normal. It's a long recovery (3 full months of wearing the neck brace) but we are confident he will be just fine!