Post-Op Day #5-Making Strides

Well, I'm a day late posting this, but better late than never. On Saturday, Mom made some incredible progress. Jason stayed Friday night and said she had a pretty good night compared to the nights past. Her oxygen was decreased to 1liter overnight and the respiratory therapist said she her O2 sats were 98-99% so he removed her oxygen all together. She remained off oxygen all day. Later in the afternoon the fog of morphine seemed to finally lift and she decided she wanted to take a walk. Jodie & I helped her down the hall. I'm not good at distances, but I would guess it's about 75yards to the waiting room. She made it there like a champ. She did so good, she tolerated it very well and didn't get dizzy or short of breath like we thought she would. We sat there and rested for a little bit and met her sister Patsy and niece Pam there. Patsy is staying this night. Then she headed back to her room, even speeding up a bit. This is a huge accomplishment for her. She even said that it did feel pretty good to get up and walk around. She ate the most for dinner since she's been here. She had chicken and rice and ate about a fourth of the chicken and a couple tablespoons of rice. We're glad her appetite seems to be starting to coming back.

I was getting a little nervous because her telemetry monitor kept alarming that she was having PVC's (premature ventricular contractions, the ventricles contracting out of turn). Occasionally, they aren't a big deal. It just made me nervous when she would have 10 and even 12 in a minute about every 20-30 minutes. Her nurse didn't seemed alarmed, so I'll trust her on that. I eventually talked to a couple that are much more knowledgeable about this and they said they were normal for what she was doing at the time. They would always happen when she would be sitting up, repositioning, or coughing. This is her body's way of getting use to the new change.