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Who among you have ever heard of someone being discharged from the hospital at 8:30 PM? It was certainly a first for me.

Whatever the time, I was so glad to be home.

This time, I have a visiting nurse that will be coming every day to change the dressing on my wound. The dressing has to be changed twice a day and Adrienne has been given the task of the second changing each day. The nurse was here already this morning and walked Adrienne through it step by step and even tho adrienne is a little reluctant, I'm sure she will do a good job.

Today's nurse was the set-up person and our regular one will start tomorrow.

I had a really good night's sleep and it feels like it. I feel more discomfort than pain and am doing well with the medications that are prescribed whether I need them or not and haven't used hardly any that are prescribed for "as needed". Of course its only been about 16 hours since I've been home so that may yet change.

But I have been taking it easy and don't have any trips planned until Thansgiving weekend. I should be all better by then. Yes?

Jiggety

Jig

Not so Fast

We have been informed that we are waiting for non-existent blood test results before mom can be released. Our afternoon nurse came in and the following conversation happened

Me: Are her discharge papers ready?
Nurse: No we are waiting for the CBC results.
Me: From Saturdays blood draw?
Nurse: No from today's.
Me: Nobody drew blood from her since 10pm Saturday night.
Nurse: yes they did
Me: No, no they didn't. I keep a chart myself of everything that goes in and out of her. ANd everything that happens to her, There was no blood drawn today.
Nurse: (looking from my list to her chart) hmmm......the other nmurse told me it had been done, let me get back to you.
She returns in a few minutes letting us know that the blood test had been ordered at 2pm (It is now after 4 pm at the point of this conversation (it is almost 6pm at the time of this writing and they STILL have not taken the blood)).

So we are in Limbo waiting for the blood to be drawn, the CBC test to be run and the results to come back in our favor.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

The Wound Nurse came in and was not displeased with what she saw. She cleaned mom nicely and poked and prodded some but all in good faith. Then she talked about "packing" the wound. That is where I got nervous. More TMI for you, for packing the wopund think of having a really runny nose and taking a kleenex and packing your nose with the corner and leaving it there. That is what they did with the open part of the wound. Then put some 4X4 squares and another larger bandage on top of that. After that mom dedcided to sit in her chair for lunch and then back to bed for a morphine induced nap. Shortly after the pain killer was administered the Surgeon showed up. He seemed pleased with what he saw. Of course, he messed up the beautiful dressing the wound care nurse put on. He told me what kind of antibiotic cream (no oral med) to put on and where, and I boldly asked for a home care nurse once in a while to come look at it. He said sure she can come daily to change the dressing. That really made my day. So now we are awaiting our discharge orders and info about the home nurse. Mom is sleeping off the morphine and we will be snugs as bugs in rugs later this evening.

Oh What a Beautiful Morning

Mom had a very restful night. She had very few pain killers and slept for quite a long time. I have never been so glad to hear her snore in such a deep sleep before. When she got up this morning, she walked on her own to the restroom and washed up, then sat in a chair then decided she wanted to go for a walk down the hall. Back in the room she was in the chair again while her bed was refreshed. Once back in bed the pain settled back in. She is again resting comfortably.

The Dr. that removed the sutures came in before all of this activity and again proclaimed the wound superficial. But he did express worry that it could go deeper if given the chance. So we are not on our way home yet. We have to wait for her surgeon to come in this afternoon and check her out himself. meanwhile she remains on the IV antibiotic Ancef. Hopefully we will be homebound shortly.

Pain, Pain Go Away

Hi, this is Adrienne. Around 2pm, one of the nice Dr.'s came in to remove mom's sutures. Even though she had had 4 mg of morphine a couple of hours before and her 10mg of vicodin just an hour before it was truly a painful process. About halfway through the Dr. stopped and ordered an extra 4mg of morphine to help her get through the most painful part. Although the extra drugs helped take the edge off it didn't completely make it a painless process. Gretchen and Gordon arrived just in time to watch this fun time and afterwards I went back to moms to get a little rest. When I returned about 4 hours later she proclaimed to not be in any pain. What?! Could this be as simple as removing those horrible sutures? Or were a Herclean amount of drugs still rushing through her system. It is now around 9:30 pm and she has just asked for her bedtime meds to make sure getting into a comfortable sleeping position is a smooth operation.

We fully expect to be home in our own beds (well sofa bed for me) tomorrow evening.

Not Worried

OK, Adrienne just called and Dr. Soo is not worried. He says that the incision did not so much open up as fail to close. He said there is no infection but they are going to keep mom in the hospital tonight with an antibiotic drip and then send her home tomorrow with some antibiotic cream. Another doctor is suppose to be coming soon to take out all of the sutures to make sure those are not what is bothering her. The nurses did not seem to want to change mom's dressing so Adrienne asked for the supplies and has done it herself. What a good daughter.

Morning

She slept well and ate some breakfast. The morphine is helping, but the incision isvery painful to the touch. When she left the hospital two weeks ago I think Dr. Soo told her to make an appointment with him in 4 weeks, she had whittled that down to three but Dr. Soo seemed to think that to be indulgent. Now at the hospital the other doctors and nurses seem amazed that no one has looked at her back since the surgery. Between that and doing too much too soon, here we are.

In A Bed

1am - OK, she is settled in a bed, has had 4mg of morphine, and has asked for a sleeping pill. Adrienne will be there all night and then Gretch will come in tomorrow to give her a break. I still have Jackson here and I have to be at work on Monday so I am useless.

G - your number is busy and I am tired. Stop by the house and pick up the envelope of papers before you head to the hospital.

Admitted

9:25pm - Adrienne just sent a text saying that mom is being admitted. She will update when she has more cells on her phone.

Three Steps Back

Well, we broke the mommy today. We took her out to Colasanti's (about a 2 hour drive) and we broke her. Broke her right in half.

When Adrienne checked her incision this morning it looked OK, maybe a little red but OK. Tonight after Adrienne, Jackson, and I got back from dinner mom was complaining about some pain around her incision and when Adrienne and I looked it seemed to have broken open in one place and was oozing something green and unpleasant. (TMI? Tough.) Adrienne called the doctor's service and he called back within a few minutes and after a long conversation (well, long for Dr. Soo) he said to bring her to the emergency room Providence Hospital (not the closest hospital, but the one where she had the surgery). He did not seem worried about infection but he was worried about the wound opening. So we packed her up and they set off just after 8pm.

9pm - Adrienne just called me and said that she really didn't have anything to report except that they had been seen by a doctor and he did not like what he saw so he was calling in the resident. I am sitting here listening to Jackson playing the bedroom without any intention of going to sleep, but I don't even care.

I will keep you all posted.

p.s. - You can tell at the bottom of a post (where the time and comments are) who posted here. It is is mom, it will say "Paulette" if it is me it will say "EZ."

Hitting the Wall

I'm afraid I was trying too hard to become the poster child of how quickly one can recover from this surgery.

I've been out to eat four times, been to the mall twice, been to the show, out for long walks (in my wheelchair) and last night I spent the night lying awake waiting for the time to take my next pain pill.

I think its time to slow down a little.

I had an appointment at the eye doctor yesterday, but when Adrienne looked up some of my medications on the Internet we found that they could affect my vision. So when we mentioned this to the doctor, he changed my major pain medication from percoset to darvoset. I cancelled the eye doctor. I am continuing the percoset until it runs out (sometime today) then I will start on the other.

Monica, as to the long shoehorn, it seems to be a tool to be used standing up and I am not quite able to put my shoes on standing up yet. I'm not able to get a good angle on it while sitting. I guess you would have to try it to see what I mean.

I've been warned

Yesterday morning Adrienne caught me in bed whimpering in pain and yelled at me that if I wasn't going to wake her up when I needed her she may as well go home. That got my attention.

I didn't have to wake her up last night, but she attended to me often and I had a pretty good night. I couldn't account for her's tho. She's is theoretically still in bed but had been up and down so much she couldn't possibly be sleeping.

We had a beautiful fall, sunny day yesterday and Adrienne got my wheelchair out and took me for a walk. We stopped to visit my old neighbors, the Suchy's. The filled me in on recent deaths in the complex. One was the husband of the lady who had been my roommate on a trip to Italy. He was originally from the hills of Kentucky and was our "go-to" guy when we found animals in the traps set near the garbage containers.

The other was a woman whose son coincidentally committed suicide the same day she died. Neither was aware that the other had died. What a reunion that must have been in the afterlife.

I'm Really Home

The first couple of days I was apprehensive of coming home. The things that were so difficult for me to do in the hospital (get in and out of bed, walk a little, even roll over) just seemed like they would be impossible on my own. I had at least one daughter there around the clock and sometimes two. But this is turning out to be way better than I was expecting. Adrienne is a hard taskmaster but I try to do everything she says.

They gave me a walker and that is more helpful than I expected. Trying to use it inside the hospital room was just ridiculous. But using it here is helpful, even tho there are only 10 to 15 steps at a time. In the hospital there were never more than 2 or 3.

From Mary's estate came a bidet type of seat that can be installed on a normal toilet and Jeff is coming over tonight to install it (or give it a good try).

Adrienne is fixing a roast beef dinner for us and Steph and her husband and Rita will be joining us also.

My wound leakage has been keeping Adrienne busy with laundry and she went out and got me a vinyl mattress cover for my bed and pillows. She is taking very good care of me and is sympathetic to my whining. She has set up some very professional medication charts so as not to kill me.

I thank you for all the prayers and good thoughts.

There's No Place Like Home

Mom is home!! I just got the call from Adrienne. After I talked to her at about 11am they changed mom's dressing and basically said she was good to go. She stayed for lunch (they had good soup there) and then off they went. Adrienne claimed to be stinky (I thought I smelled something) and she was heading into the shower and then she was going off to fill prescriptions. Just in case mom has any more pain. Nah, that won't happen.

Some things may be harder at home than they were in the hospital, but still I am sure it is nice to be home. I know I like thinking of here there more than I liked thinking of her in the hospital. Maybe she will even do her own post soon.

Better and Better

Mom did a lot yesterday morning while Adrienne went home to sleep. She had an Occupational Therapist come in and talk to her about how to do things when she goes home. Mom proved to her that she could handle the bathroom and I was happy for the help with that (Adrienne had been doing most of the potty runs). As soon as she left the Physical Therapist came in and Mom walked down the hall and up a few stairs. Of course, I ran ahead and had a chair waiting at the end of the hall for her to rest and she was very happy for that. The PT person was surprised but we explained that we have been dealing with back pain for years, this is nothing new to us. Anyway, she handled the stairs fine and then it was back to bed. But only for a few minutes until the new brace arrived with a brace technician to show us how to use it. Boy was I sorry Adrienne wasn't there then, she is the one that will need to get this on mom when they are home. Luckily, she is a smart cookie who has braced things before and she will figure it out in no time. The brace person really pissed mom off because she was always standing in the way and was just generally clueless. I finally went for the nurse who was able to intervene and the brace person went on her way. So mom was sitting up in the brace for most of the morning and she was sitting that way and having her lunch when Adrienne got back. Aunt Rita showed up at about the same time and quickly filled them in on all of our activities and then hightailed it to Indiana to hug my baby. And sleep. Sleep is good. Sleep is great. Sleep is even better in a real bed with real pillows. Mmmmmm. Sleep. But I digress.

I talked to Adrienne last night and again this morning and mom is doing fine. She has pain on and off, but she has more good than bad. The doctor mentioned changing her dressing before she went home but he did not sign a discharge order yet so we are still hanging on to find out exactly when they might be able to go home. I will keep you all posted.

Ice Anyone?

Mom has eaten more than her fair share of ice here in the hospital, each tech has commented on how much she can go through. That would not be enough to necessitate a whole blog post but then Adrienne called me from the parking lot this mornng at 6:45am asking where mom kept her ice scraper. I told her to bring mittens and she didn't believe me.

Mom is doing really well. She had some pretty bad, discouraging pain last night. Each pain med they gave her seemed to have no effect at all. We turned the ballgame on and read trivia questions and the distractions helped. At around midnight the nurse got some Benadryl approved and I decided to go to sleep in the lounge so Mom could try to sleep better. I found out later that around 1am she had some of the IV pain medicine and ended up getting up to go to the bathroom and decided to take a little walk down the hall. I missed it all.

She slept good and I slept good (the lounge had a chair that turned into a pretty decent bed) but Adrienne did not sleep much. So we sent her back to mom's to get some sleep this morning and when she gets back I will start for home. I couldn't let her go before 6:30 because the tech that was on last night (nicknamed BroomHilda) was terrible. We needed Adrienne her to manage potty breaks, etc.

One of the doctors came in after Adrienne left and told mom that she could have the IV taken out this morning since she has been eating good. That will makes trips to the bathroom much, much easier. He also took out a drain that has been in her since the surgery. He seemed to think that she should be going home tomorrow. Yay!

I don't have much juice left in my laptop and all of the plugs in here are taken up by beeping things, so this may be my last post. I am sure Adrienne and mom will keep you all updated when they get home.

Vampires

We are doing great! Right at this moment. Mom's doctor has come and gone and he upped her pain medication. She hasn't actually taken any more than usual but she is feeling good anyway. Adrienne went home for a little while and she just came back a few minutes ago. Aunt Rita just went home and we plan on settling in for the night. One of the results from an earlier blood test was that her hemoglobin was low an so we have been dripping the fluid of life into her for the last few hours. Her cheeks are pink and rosy and all is right with our world. Right enough even to take a picture or two.

Home for One

Adrienne is here! Yay! Since we all had such a long day yesterday and mom was not ready to be left alone without a daughter, Jeannette picked Adrienne up from the airport and brought her right to the hospital. To manage cars I had Jeannette bring me back home so that I could shower and change and then drive my own car to the hospital. That way Adrienne could take possession of mom's car and not be tied to anyone for a ride anywhere. Aunt Rita is on her way back to the hospital so it might be a full room for the rest of the day, since I plan on heading back as soon as I am done here.

We made it through the pain (with a little help from Categories/Encore and modern pharmeceuticals) and on to lunch, which mom liked very much. She did some rotating in the bed which was not as bad as she feared and she was scheduled to get some blood as I was leaving. I feel great knowing that I left a sister behind so I don't have to worry about her.

A shower and a nap sound really good right about now.

Take a Little Walk

It is just past 10am and mom just went for a little walk. The physical therapist taught her the right way to get out of bed and she said it was not nearly as bad as she feared it would be. Not that it was good, but when you are dreading something and it is only bad the contrast effect makes it seem great. She walked with a walker just a little ways down the hall and back and it made her feel weak. She is still having a lot of pain so it is all hard, but we are getting through it.