Day One mid-day report!

So what’s for breakfast? Maybe just broth and tea? Oh no, we’ve got toast and juice today people.

One item we forgot to mention in the post yesterday is that Al does NOT have the NG tube! Halleluiah!!! The first thing she did when she woke up from surgery was check to see if it was there. I can’t really relate to the joy she had for discovering that a tube was not sucking stuff out of her stomach through her nose but I’m sure it was a nice surprise to say the least.

Around 8:30 last night Al was finally moved to her PRIVATE room. This makes things so much better and easier on Al. She’s had some pretty colorful roommates in the past. The night went well and Al was able to get some sleep thanks to the spinal block she received yesterday before surgery and the IV pain meds she has next to her bed. This is a huge improvement over her last surgery when the pain was so out of control she couldn’t be touched let alone sleep.

With some toast and juice for breakfast Al was excited. We didn’t expect she would be able to have any food for a few days. Of course, doctor’s orders were to only eat if she felt she could and after a few bites she had enough. But a great start nonetheless. And for lunch? More toast and juice. Although this time they also brought some cream of wheat. If you know Al, the cream of wheat was never really in the equation. Round two goes to the toast!

And with these two surprises of food deliveries came the first bowel movement (I think we can still call it that right?) from the new K-pouch. As Al mentioned a few posts ago, she has a bag attached to her leg and a “Medina Catheter” in her K-pouch to constantly drain anything to promote the healing. She will have this bag for a few weeks before she moves to manually draining the K-pouch every few hours. Exciting news to see that things are working properly.

She also has a urinary catheter and a wound drain hooked up to sump pump to keep the area healthy so it can heal. The poor girl has tubes and IVs everywhere. So when it came time to change her bedding the simple act of getting up and sitting in a chair next to her bed for a few minutes became a multi cast production and quite chaotic. All this action wiped her out. So after she rests we are going to try to go for a short walk later in the afternoon. If we can make it into the hallway and past a room or two we think that’s a big accomplishment for one day.

Also, an update to hospital policy, due to H1N1 they are limiting visitors to 4 people per day per patient, no one under the age of 14 is allowed unless they are a patient, the hospital will screen all visitors for Flu and if you show any signs of infection you are not allowed in. Strict rules but necessary to protect everyone.

Well folks, we’ve made it halfway through day one. So far so good.