Home Away From Home

Many people have asked me if I am staying with Tyler while he is in the hospital, so I thought I would take a quick second to show you my home away from home. Tyler's room (a private room) comes equipped with a chair that actually converts into a bed for any overnight guests. Each night, I convert my chair (pictured on the left) into a bed (pictured on the right). I have access to sheets and pillows from their linen service, but I actually cover the bed with two blankets that we were given so that I don't freeze to death at night. The chair/bed seems to be located at the end of an arctic wind tunnel. Tyler's bed doesn't seem to receive any of the room's air conditioning, so we have it on at full blast much of the time. I've often thought we should switch places to get the right temperature for each.

They also have a "family room" where we can prepare meals, watch TV, recharge, relax, bathe, etc. It's easy to see that they have considered long term patients and long term caregivers' needs. I go home occasionally to pick up clean clothes or more food or just get an uninterrupted night of sleep, but most nights I am with Tyler. We have fallen into a comfortable rhythm of wake time and sleep time in the hospital, although we seem to act more like farmers here (going to sleep as soon as darkness falls). Vitals are checked every 4 hours, so we get brief interruptions at 8pm, midnight, and 4am. Thankfully the nights have been quieter since we added the request to group the nighttime processes together.

Tyler's family has been wonderful about offering to stay the night with Tyler, so that I can get out for a short time. Sadly, I'm quite possessive of his time and unwilling to share him very often. Hopefully they don't take it personally that I seem to hog all of Tyler's time! :)

That's just a little peek into the caregiver side of our stay at UWMC.

Happy Thanksgiving to all! We wish you an abundance of turkey, mashed potatoes, football, family and friends to celebrate the holidays!!