A Long Day

Yesterday morning I called the nurses station to talk with Sam before she started her day. They put Sam on the phone and when I asked her how she was doing, she said "great", and she told me that she was very much looking forward to her day. She asked me if I loved her and I said "of, course!, I love you very much" and she said, "good, good, good". Well, we continued with our conversation a little bit more along these lines and then the nurse helped Sam hang-up the phone. I felt good about how Sam was doing at that moment, and knew I'd be seeing her later, after work as well. A few hours later, the social worker, Jenny called me to first to let me know that the Doctor had removed the staples from Sam's head and that the wound was healing nicely. Jenny also told me that Sam had been crying most of the morning and was very confused, thinking it was her birthday and no one was there to celebrate with her. They had alerted the therapists to her situation and would work with her throughout the day to help her; they were also going to ask Lee to play music and talk with her during recreation time. I then began feeling concerned about Sam, contrary to how I had been feeling earlier. When later in the evening, I arrived, Sam was in the dining room and when she saw me she started to cry- a lot. I knew right away from seeing her reaction that she was being over medicated. The doctors are aware of her situation, but seem to need a two week period to see the full effects of new medicine and then make adjustments etc. After talking with Sam a bit last night, she was actually aware that she was confused, and that the "celebration" she was thinking about was all in her head. She was even able to identify that she was feeling "mentally off" all day. After talking with her more during and after dinner, she seemed to calm down. In fact, when her friends, Wendy and Aileen arrived Sam seemed very much back to herself. In fact, she was doing really well. Wendy and Aileen joked with Sam and Sam joked back. Sam was laughing a lot, and it turned into a really fun evening. Wendy took a bunch of pictures and Sam really hammed it up. In fact we all stayed past visiting hours and no one threw us out. All of us sang along to a game show on T.V., called something like "Do You Know the Lyrics". It was a great ending to what seemed to me, like a very long day.