Deb's Surgery - Day 3

Today was definitely NOT a good day for Deb. She called this morning early and wanted me to come and get her because they weren't doing anything for her pain at the hospital. I then called down to the floor at the hospital and suggested that it was time to get the pain specialists involved in this case because so far nothing was working. They assured me they would do that and by the time I got down the hospital (about noon), they had gotten involved. They had Deb on Oxycodone, Valium, morphine, vistaril, and gabapenten. Since they had already had her on Oxycodone and Valium before, I guess they must have upped the dosage this time. They had put an IV catheter in so they could give her morphine. They only gave her anything by IV once while I was there today, and then they realized the IV needed to be replaced! Anyway, once they got her medicated, she basically slept the entire day, and did she ever sleep hard. Since surgery, she thinks she has gotten only a few hours of sleep, so she was way overdue for a good snooze.

She had several visitors today. Our favorite barista from the Caribou Coffee in our Medtronic Mounds View campus, Tiffany, stopped to see her. And, Deb's niece Chane stopped to see her as well. They were both there around noon, when Deb was still awake so they all had a nice visit.

I went to lunch around 1:30 and Deb was sleeping deeply when I came back. She was due for pain meds at 2:30, but we couldn't wake her enough to give them to her, so we decided to wait until a little later. She finally got something around 5:00 again. She ate her dinner at the same time. She would put her fork in something and fall asleep. Then I would wake her and she would take the bite. Then I would wake her and she would chew. And so on, and so on.

Nikki, Jacob, Jessi, Luke, and Henry stopped by to visit, but I am sure that Deb has no idea they were even there. She opened her eyes a few times and smiled big every time she saw the grandsons and kids, but then right back to sleep. We all kept up a pretty active conversation and Jacob and Henry were very active and vocal as well, and she just didn't wake up for any of it. She was out. The kids and grandkids left around 7:30.

I decided to go home around 8:00 and discussed it with Deb's nurse. Then, we went to the room to see how she was doing. Her O2 saturation numbers were very low, so the nurse put her on oxygen. I tried to wake her enough for her to register that I was leaving, but I don't think I was successful. She doesn't seem to have any pain in this state, which is good, but she isn't actually there in this state either! Damned if you do, damned if you don't I guess.

Anyway, I'll go back down tomorrow morning sometime and see how things are going. Hopefully they can begin to wean her down without the pain getting ahead of her this time and we can get to the business of healing and getting her home. Right now it is possible that she may not even get home before Monday unless some things turn around real quickly.

Good night everyone, more updates tomorrow.

Jon