A little bit of peace

Thursday was a nightmare, one of the pop's worst days yet. He got his longest dialysis so far, and after that was transferred to the new facility - a lot of stress in one day. The doctor who accompanied him in the ambulance during the transfer came forth with some very dire prognoses, and Ritesh was so upset when I talked to him yesterday morning that I bailed out of work early and skipped dinner to get there as soon as possible. With bloody Friday rush hour traffic, it still took me 2 1/2 hours for the 45 mile trip but just as the mom said, it was so worth it.
When I got there at 7.30pm, his eyes were still wide open, as they have been for these last days that he's been unresponsive. When I told him that I was there, he managed to frown, which at least is a reaction. I did some acupressure on the kidney points on his feet until Ritesh and the mom arrived, and then when the frown came back, stroked his forehead very gently from the root of the frown between the eyelids up to what they call the 6th chakra or 3rd eye. This is super-relaxing as you'll know if you've ever done an ayurvedic treatment, and the frown disappeared, his breathing relaxed, his eyelids started getting a little droopy and a little while later, he had this eyes closed and was asleep. What a relief! He looked so peaceful, for the first time in days. Not that I'm trying to take credit for that, I think he is just in much better hands here and can hopefully finally make some progress. Just the reduction in the bacterial load that he's exposed to must help - it was striking how lax the other hospital was about hygiene. Here, you have to put on a gown, gloves and mouth protection if you want to see him - in the other place you could just walk in, as did everyone else, too, notably the hospital staff. No wonder he ended up with a hospital-borne bacterial infection (MRSA) that they're still trying to get under control.