I am Hannah Storer

To quote the intensive care consultant who knows me very well and has been heavily involved with me every time I have been to Alder Hey, "Looking at things in the longer term, there are highs and there are lows, and this is a bit of a low moment" The day started really nicely for my mummy and daddy, a smile from a surgeon in the parents room after closing my chest, was to use the quote above "one of the highs" However, my reputation of being a bit difficult is back at its strongest today in the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit at Alder Hey Children's Hospital! Today i have demonstrated full on diva behaviour!!!!! I have demanded more Adrenaline, more Nitric Oxide, more Oxygen AND I am now on domestic Viagra as well! All maxed out! I have got my old reputation back and am ruling the intensive care unit with fear! They dared to mess about with me this morning, I was behaving impeccably but oh yes they had to go and pick a fight, well they picked on the wrong 5 3/4 year old girl today! And what a torrid response I have given them. The doctors had warned of a possible Stormy post operative period, so I decided to do a "Hannah" and gave them a Hurricane! That will teach them, I am Hannah Storer and I will not be messed with! My sats (oxygen levels in the blood) have been all over the place since they dared to do some physio on me at lunchtime. Apparently they think it is ok to give me a bit of a massage which it is, but how dare they take the tube off my ventilator and stick a vacuum cleaner down my nose tube? How dare they? Well, I decided to make them pay for that and promptly dropped my saturation levels to 50% for just long enough to make sure everyone took notice. All by myself I then decided to return to a much better level of saturation, not great but just enough to calm everyone down. I then had a bit of awake time, I opened my eyes and my daddy asked me if i would like him to read me some of the blog, I nodded my head and mouthed "I love you", my daddy being my daddy didn't notice but my nurse told him! I have been responsive and listened for a few minutes before drifting back off to sleep, to use the earlier quote"this was one of the highs". THEN they decided to stick the vacuum down my nose again which woke me up, and I was furious, my poor nurse had the full force of a Hannah Storer ICU moment! I dropped my sats spectacularly and no matter what they did I refused to play ball! After toying with them for a good hour, having a chest x-ray and making sure I had a full audience, I decided to behave again, but my consultant had to give me full on physiotherapy session first. My left lung was not working too well but with a nice, if not a bit enthusiastic hug from my consultant my sats have gone back to a good level. I am actually very easy to look after, do nice things like hug me and read to me and I am fine, but be careful who you pick a fight with, I may only be 5 3/4, I may only be small, and I may look a bit vulnerable at the moment, but I am one tough little cookie!! My daddy is not looking very happy, he was looking very smug earlier and had it all planned out, he had avoided the football scores, had got my grandma to make a meat and potato pie, and was going to slope off at half past ten to watch Match of the Day, and probably fall asleep. But I am a girlie girl and i am also the boss so he can have his food microwaved when i tell him and then get himself back to ICU to sit with me so my mummy can go to Mac House and get some well deserved rest, just like me. He can read about the football in the newspaper tomorrow if he must!! I have had an echo of my heart this evening just to check out the reasons why my sats have been dropping, it is all working fine, they just need to not shove a vacuum down my nose without my consent and everything will be fine! Basically they have prescribed enthusiastic hugs every few hours from my doctors, and tonight's doctor is wearing a Minnie Mouse top so that will be extra nice!!! I would like to say a massive thank you to the nurses and the doctors for all your help today, and also the extra effort you put into explaining things and looking after my mummy and daddy, it has been a good tussle today, but I think I have had the upper hand!!!! We will be doing this recovery thing on my terms and my terms only.