Post-Op Day #7-Turned The Corner

Mom had a pretty sleepless night last night, she said. However, she said she feels wonderful today. She said she took several walks around the unit and has been up in the chair most of the day. She added that she hasn't had to take anything for pain! Jodie, Aunt Chris, and I stopped in on her this evening, and I have to say she looks amazing. Her cough, color, appetite, and energy are so much better than they have been, even better is that she's not sleepy anymore. She saw Dr. Seligson today and he said he was pleased with her progress. There is still no official word on when she will get to come home. She still has the chest tube in and in order for her to get it out, she has to have less than 150ml per day of drainage from it. Yesterday she was about 800ml, and from then to today she had about 400ml so we think she's on the right path. She can't wait to get home, especially to see the grandkids and we can't wait for her to get home. It's just not the same without her around!

Post-Op Day #6-On The Right Track

Patsy said she had a pretty good night. She was able to sleep about two hours at a time but getting back to sleep fairly quickly after waking to take more pain medicine. She is doing really good with the Darvocet they have been giving her. The Reglan seems to be helping as well for the nausea. For lunch, she ate half a bowl of soup and a few bites of salad. We have made a date for later this afternoon to take another walk. She wanted to take a nap first, I'm pretty sure yesterday's walk tired her out quite a bit. She even made a dinner request for a cheeseburger kid's meal with a Frosty from Wendy's. Her appetite seems to be getting better (better meaning she actually has a small one) without the oxygen on. Dad is staying tonight, so hopefully she'll have as good of night as she did last night.

Thank you all for keeping her in your prayers. We know she still has a long road to recovery, but given the alternative, I couldn't be happier with her progress.

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.

Post-Op Day #4

Well, there is not much to update today. Things are pretty much the same as yesterday. The atelectasis is unchanged (good, it's not worse!), but Mom's appetite also remains unchanged. She is still VERY sleepy. Since the morphine/fentanyl incident, they have changed her to oral pain meds which she is requesting very rarely. It's just frustrating because we can't figure out why she is sleepier now than she was the day after her surgery. Her oxygen levels on her blood gasses continue to be normal and they even took her off of continuous pulse oximetry because she is now on 2 liters of oxygen. Today, when I called the nurse to check on her she ensured me that all the critical things (lungs, heart, incision) we are most concerned about continue to be doing just fine. That, we are very grateful for. Jodie stayed with her last night and earlier today. She said she had a pretty good morning. She did, however, have a little elevation in her white blood cell count (WBC's, the infection fighters) to 17,000. According to the night nurse, it's not "bad", they just want to take every precaution to ensure that she doesn't get infected or pneumonia so they started her on Zosyn, a pretty heavy duty antibiotic.

Tonight, Jason is staying with her. He'll do just fine also. He seems to be doing just as good of job annoying tonight's nurse as I did. I got there after work and she was in Mom's room assessing her and turned to me and said, "Oh, are you the daughter?" What can I say, I made an impression....

Post-Op Day #3-Update

Mom's nurse just told us the results of her latest chest x-ray. It showed a "slight increase in the atelectasis of the right lower lobe", meaning the collapsed area has gotten a little bit bigger. We have yet to know what the lung doctor has in store for her.

She is still very sleepy. She did eat a little bit of her lunch today which she managed to keep down. Jodie is working on dinner with her. Dr. Seligson, the surgeon, decided that her tiny body just can't tolerate Morphine like other people so he had the nurse shut it off and switch her to pain meds by mouth.

As soon as we know anything else we'll post it!

Post-Op Day #3-Minor Setback

Mom had a pretty restless night. She had several bouts of nausea. Yesterday around 2pm they placed the Fentanyl patch. Somewhere between then and about 7pm we noticed that her IV had wet bad so as a result, she wasn't getting the Morphine IV like we had thought. About an hour or two after her IV was replaced she started with the nausea. She received 3 doses of Zofran overnight that seemed to help. Dr. Seligson's nurse practitioner, Jo came in and we had the revelation about the combined effect of the two meds. She decided that the Fentanyl patch that Dr. Salamat ordered was unnecessary since she was having adequate pain relief from the Morphine PCA and was the culprit behind her nausea so she removed it on the spot.

She did do much better with her coughing. They almost sounded normal. She was very pleased with herself and was even bragging about it to Dr. Seligson this morning.

Her O2 sats are fine, running at 95-98% even while up in the chair. Sometime overnight they decreased her oxygen to 3liters. This is an improvement from the 6liters she was on last night. She, however, is extremely tired today, only waking to us nudging her telling her to wake up.

Since then Dr. Salamat came to round on Mom and told us (with her"best bedside manner") that according to this morning's chest x-ray that the lower remaining portion of Mom's right lung has collapsed. Dr. Salamat thinks that this is possibly due to a mucous plug in that portion of the lung. She ordered blood gasses and a repeat chest x-ray. Depending on those results we will know if Mom has to undergo another bronchoscopy to remove the plug in an attempt to help "reinfalte" that area. We will know the results in about an hour. Please pray for her. She needs as much help as she can get to get over this hurdle.

I will update this again once we know more.

Post Op Day #2

So far so good up on the unit. Last night they increased Mom's oxygen to five liters from the two she was on earlier in the day. Her O2 sats have increased to 96-98%. They also added a humidifier to the oxygen since it can be very drying to the inside of the nose and air passages. Her color is so much better today compared to yesterday.

Dad said she had a good night last night. Dad was here when the doctor came to see her this morning. I'm not sure which one it was, but they read her the riot act about coughing and deep breathing. If she doesn't, she will more than likely develop pneumonia. We don't want this at all. Anita, her nurse today, told me that her latest chest x-ray didn't show any pneumonia on it...let's keep it that way.

Her pain seems to be a little better. She was up sitting in a chair today when I got here. Dad said she had been up for about two hours. She was getting tired so we got her back in bed. She gets up and down just fine, all things considered. She got a little cat nap in after lunch which was what she needed. Also, to help with her pain, they started her in a Fentanyl patch, in addition to the Morphine PCA.

That's all we know so far today. We want to thank you all for your continued well-wishes and prayers.