Tough Day

The day after surgery is always a tough one. The doctors were in and out all night long last night. Literally, we went to "bed" a little after 11pm and at 1:30am a surgeon came by to check on Maddy. Lights on, checking incision sites, asking about pain and the like. Then another one showed up at 4am, same deal. And then of course the normal morning routine kicked in at 5am. Here is how that plays out...

5am - nurse comes in to draw morning blood work, try to go back to sleep
5:30am - nurse comes back in with prograf, take under tongue then try to go back to sleep.
6am - patient care tech (PCT) comes in to check vitals, blood pressure, temp, O2 sats, try to get back to sleep.
6:15-6:30 - PCT changes trash and restocks med supplies in room for shift change. Try to sleep through that.
7 am - PCT checks blood sugar, Try to get back to sleep.
7:30 - day nurse comes in for shift change "assessment", which usually includes asking how your pain level is just before poking at the incision sites. Pretend to go back to sleep.
8am - nurse comes back with morning meds, swallow 8 horse pills and ask for more pain meds, TRY TO FALL BACK TO SLEEP!
9am - doctor comes in and wakes her up, asks what's wrong, she says 'nothing, I'm feeling ok' in the hopes of getting out of this crazy house of sleep deprivation. Doctor says, ' then why are you still in bed? You must be sick. Better watch you for a few more days.'

And people think hospitals are for getting rest and recovery. Nope!

Sorry about the little rant. Sometimes I just need to get that out of my system. Back to Maddy's progress.

She was given a pain pump of dilaudid with a button to control the pain last night and that helped with a lot of Maddy's pain issued for the night. This morning she was having a lot of pain in her left shoulder. We thought it was muscle pain from being put in a weird position during her surgery. We were informed by the surgeon later that the pain is from the CO2 they pump into her abdomen for the procedure. They try to remove as much if it as possible but the rest just has to dissipate on it's own. Apparently while it's dissipating it can migrate up into the left shoulder area and cause severe nerve pain. It could take a few days to completely dissipate and the doc said one of the best ways to get it out of your system is to get up and walk. Unfortunately the pain is so bad it's making it impossible for Maddy to be upright very long.

She was hoping to get out of here the day after the surgery but it looks like she will need stronger pain meds to get rid of this nerve pain than she anticipated. That will end up keeping her here longer. It's all in kind of a wait and see scenario at the moment. Maddy has been trying to get off the IV pain meds but that has not worked today. She will allow them to keep the pain meds coming on a regular schedule to stay ahead of the crest today and try to get off the IV meds again tomorrow. The doc said that as long as she is not vomiting and can manage the pain with oral meds he will let her go. We will see what tomorrow holds.

Peace!