January Top Five #1 - Girls' Night Out

As I mentioned in a previous post, each month I am challenging myself to scrap my Top Five (photos or stories or events) from the previous month. (Thanks for the INSPIRATION Jo!)

I created this first layout, Girls' Night Out, because I wanted to record the story of the night I spent with Mama in the hospital after she had surgery early in January. (She's recovered and doing great now!) I didn't have any photos to go along with this story, but I found a photo of the hospital online that I could include.

Here's the story: When Mama called to ask if I’d stay overnight with her after her surgery in early January, I (of course) said yes. I arrived at the hospital around 10 am the Thursday morning she was scheduled for surgery. She and Daddy had already been there for a couple of hours and were still waiting for her turn. The surgeon arrived to check for any pre-surgery questions shortly after, and they wheeled Mama off for surgery. A couple of hours later, the surgeon came out & let me and Daddy know that things had gone fairly well. Mama was assigned to a room on the maternity ward, where she arrived in the early afternoon. The next four hours or so were busy as nurses were in and out hooking up the IV, checking her medical history (again), administering medications, checking vitals, etc. Then things slowed down a little . . . but not much. Every two or three hours a nurse arrived to check vitals or give meds or reload the IV machine which had started beeping. Actually it beeped all the time, but it got louder when it was empty! After two trips back to the house for things Mama needed, Daddy headed home for the night late that evening. Around 9 pm, Mama and I both fell asleep . . . until the nurse was back in at 11 pm . . . then midnight . . . then 2 am. The hospital room was somewhat small and the nurses often ran into the end of the hospital bed or chair/couch I was on. After apologizing for bumping into my makeshift bed (to which I replied, “no problem”), the young nurse that came in sometime in the early morning to check Mama’s blood pressure (again) and empty the bag at the end of the catheter (again) apologized for having to wake her again. Mama said it was ok. The nurse replied, “Y’all sure are being nice about everything.” I had to smile when Mama replied, “Oh, we’re having a Girls’ Night Out just the two of us!” I laughed & said, “Yep, just some good old mother/ daughter bonding time.” Of course, we were both exhausted and Mama was in pain (or feeling no pain because of the morphine drip maybe), but it totally makes me smile to think that we were able to joke and make the best of the situation. 

However, I do hope our future Girls’ Night Outs don’t include a hospital or a beeping IV machine or being awakened every two hours!

This is the first layout I've completed for our 2015 chronological album! Have you scrapped any of your 2015 photos or stories yet?