Home After Surgery

Karen's doing well. She came home late last night and is recuperating. The kids were visibly glad to see her and we spent a restful day at home today after what seems like the longest week of our lives.

Between one thing and another, running back and forth to the hospital and cajoling the kids back to sleep each night, I have had neither the time nor the inclination to update this blog but with Karen home it's time to give a little update.

Karen's stay in hospital was not without incident. The day after her surgery, her epidural stopped working. By the time I got to her room that morning she had already been an hour without pain medication and could barely speak. Another hour passed with me becoming more and more irate whilst the nurses frantically looked for an IV pump. I finally hit the right nerve (no pun intended) with the nurse manager and a pump was found. It took the rest of the day to get Karen's pain under control.

Mild fever, low blood counts, shallow breathing kept my nerves on edge.

There were a few other incidents which essentially all stemmed from in-experienced residents all waltzing into Karen's room, treating her like a science experiment without fully reading her chart.

I have to say we were very disappointed overall with the level of intelligence and care displayed by the nurses and residents at LIJ. Thank God for Dr Ravikumar who was diligent in his post-op follow up. He ended up over-riding or supplementing almost every instruction given for K's post-op care. I won't go into the details but it was Karen's determination that finally got her released last night.

An oral form of morphine is controlling her pain now and she's improving every day. We have scheduled a follow up with our oncologist, Dr. Moriarty, next week. The current plan which he'll likely confirm is to proceed with chemo for two months followed by hepatic artery infusion (chemo directly into K's liver) followed by more systemic chemo. A second surgery will be needed to remove the right lobe of the liver.

I will conclude with thanks to all for the loving support which somehow continues to flow into the Shanahan household.