She started crying sitting at the edge of the bed combing her hair. I sat next to her, hiding my own tears. Such a simple task, now such an achievement. No one would have imagined this 38 year old woman's life being turned upside down the way it has been over the last two months. On January 18th 2009, she gave birth to her second child, a perfectly healthy baby boy. Then after two weeks of being home with her growing family, she started to not feel well. Her doctor recommended that she go to the hospital, just to get checked out. A few days later she was comatose, vented, on dialysis, and receiving final blessings from family and friends as she went into multi-organ failure due to a pneumonia and sepsis.
After swift medical interventions including a course of IV antibiotics, she began winning the uphill battle- her lungs and kidneys returned to function and she became stable enough to be transfered to our hospital for rehabilitation. Initially she needed all of our help to bring her sitting to the edge of the bed, the next day she needed half help, and by day 3 she was sitting up on her own! Sure signs of her body's resiliency, but emotionally she was struggling. Imagine being away from your newborn for over one month!
So we began the "books on tape" project, (can't take credit for this one, thanks Colleen!), voice recording my patient's voice reading stories and special messages to her children. Her family at home then included this into their bedtime routine so they could be used to hearing their mother's voice. Like brushing your hair, reading a bedtime story has never carried so much meaning.
