Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Post-Op Recovery

Karen's doing so-so. She's stable. She spent a number of hours in recovery last night. "Recovery" is the room where you go after surgery and you get one-on-one nurse care. Usually folks spend an hour max in there and then go to the ICU room. She was transferred out at 2AM so 13 hours for her. She's in ICU now.

I spent a good deal of the afternoon with her then came home to put kids to bed. Her blood pressure was very low, 74/43 at one point so everyone was on edge. After I left they started giving her a blood transfusion and so far she's had 4 bags of plasma and 3 bags of red cells.

She's also been getting Saline, Magnesium, Calcium and other stuff. She has a lot of tubes still in. Until this morning she had a stomach-drain in which sucks the contents of your stomach out through your nose! K said that was horrible coming out. She still has an epidural, a mainline in her collar bone and a number of other things. Her mainline is covered in a crazy-glue type tape which in her drugged up state she tried to scratch off.

Her blood sugar was high yesterday (the liver helps control this) and so she's been getting insulin. Ironically they don't want her sugar going too low either so they've been giving her dextrose through IV. We've been waiting on a pain pump since this morning but pain is reasonably under control through the epidural and dilaudin. I am "escalating" this one.

It's very hard for her to get comfortable.

Aetna insurance called today. That's under control.

A number of folks asked me about visiting. It's not a great idea at the moment. K's in the Intensive Care Unit probably until tomorrow or Friday. You need to be buzzed in, patients are limited, can't bring food or flowers in with you and so on. In a couple days she'll be in a regular unit and that will be a different story.

So recovery is tough, but we knew that. Easy for me to say. This is when "Hold Fast" definitely applies. The first hurdle of surgery is over but we still have some tough road to travel. We'll get there.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

We are all keeping a strong line of prayer and kind thoughts going for you both as you struggle through these early days of recovery. You both have got the stamina and motivation to "finish the race you have begun" (St. Paul to Timothy)

Love Jo (Limk)

Anonymous said...

Hang in there guys. You've both worked so hard to get to this point, keep up that fighting spirit. Agree about limiting the visitors, working in a hospital myself - less visitors means less risk of infection especially in the early stages. Pass on our love and prayers to Karen, she's an amazingly special person.
Love Teresa, Mike and the boys xx

Anonymous said...

Dear Frances and Karen, I am at the edge of my seat, I have been praying for you all day all night. When something is this close to your heart, you know exactly how it feels, and all I wish for you is to get better fast.

Just keep on top of everything and never be afraid to ask for help or anything that Karen needs. Hopefully she will be out of there in a week...that is what I am praying for.

But as my little sisters surgeon said, " the colon resection was the major league, this surgey is the world series"...there is no better way to describe this.

She will be better and strong enough before you know it..I know how hard it is now, but always look at the light at the end of the tunnel.

Love and prayers,
Mirjana

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