Day 6 Post Surgery: Shedding the First Tear, What's Really Going On and A Bit of a Scare

Still no farts. Pray for farts!

Shedding the First Tear
Today was a tough one. Mom finally broke down and cried for the first time since the surgery. Turns out she's been in more pain than she's been letting on. The pain is the worst near the port inside her body by her diaphragm. She wasn't disclosing it and got really frustrated today feeling that no one could understand how badly it hurt. The doctor ordered supplementary pain meds that go in through the port in her neck. She feels much better. Still in pain but better.

Mom says she thinks it must be because of that pain that she's been tensing up and unable to relax to fall asleep or to fart. Let's pray for deep sleep and farts tonight!

I am on hospital duty tonight - dad gets a much needed break! It's tough to sleep around here and I will find out just how tough tonight.

What's Really Going On: Why all the interruptions:

• Mom's vitals must be checked every two to four hours: they come in with a cart that measures blood pressure and has a thermometer.
  
• When they are here for vitals they are supposed to also change mom's position so as to avoid pressure ulcers (bed sores in layman's terms)
  
• All the tubes, wires and piping and flushing of the lines:
  
• Tubes: one from the tummy up the throat and out the nose pumping matter out so it doesn't travel down the intestines and colon - a piece of the colon was taken so it must heal and can only facilitate gas at this time. This tube must be flushed from time to time as it gets clogged up with matter or clots. The color of the substance coming from this line started out green, then yellow, then brown and today it is a reddish brown.
• Wires: The epidural line looks like a wire. It goes in at a lower vertebra - I am no expert but it looks like one of lumbar vertebrae. She has tenderness ("like something pulling") there when it is pushed but no sign of swelling or color that would indicate infection.
• Piping or small tubes: there are three small tubes that funnel into one tub inserted into an artery or a big vein in the side of her neck. The alternative to this is IV lines stuck in her arms all over the place. These three tubes then branch out the other end of the single larger tube into different points inside her body. The RN, Libby, explained that they have to be separated inside the body rather than funneled into one tube/vein so that medicines can be taken into the blood stream from separate places. I am not positive but believe one line is for the nutrition pack (light yellow liquid), one is for the regular IV (sodium chloride) and the third is currently vacant - I have seen them come in with syringes full of stuff (not sure what) and shooting them up the line.
  
• Oxygen in her nose and Oxygen level monitor: her average must be 90 BPM: I am assuming breaths per minute. If it falls below, the machine beeps to let her know to breath more deeply and to take more breaths. What is weird is the beeping is so similar to the other items' beeps that she isn't sure if she's running out of meds or she need to breath more when an alert goes off.
• Tubing coming out of left side of abdomen: this drains excess saline fluid that was squirted into her insides at the end of the surgery as a final cleansing. The excess must drain out this tube that is sutured to her left side. It reminds us of the nasal suction things used on babies but is permanently hooked to her side. The bulb is compressed of air and screwed onto the tube causing a suction. As it fills up the suction lessens and it is unscrewed, emptied, compressed of air again and re-installed. The liquid was dark pinkish red with blood and saline at first and now it is more of a light pinky-yellow color. Mom and dad call it "the grenade" because the bulb is shaped like one and looks like it with the lines on it but it is clear so you can see the solution.
• Catheter: No bed pan here because the colon isn't functioning yet. Urine comes through the catheter into a bag on the right side of the bed.
  
• Two ports placed inside her body as vehicles to deliver the chemotherapy/
• Compression wraps around her legs: they tighten and loosen as time goes on to keep the blood flowing through her legs so clots do not form.
• Numbing spray for her throat: she says it tastes like a flat tire and it is sprayed in her throat every four hours. "It's been a lifesaver because it prevents me from feeling the strep throat."
  

Mom says, "I am like a Christmas Tree with lots of bulb cords! Needless to say, getting out of bed several times a day to walk 30-40 yards is a miracle in itself. With all the tubes, wires, piping etc. to keep track of on the rack, I am not sure how I do it!"

A Bit of a Scare
Tonight at 11 after Libby left from giving mom the throat sprays, mom started choking. I panicked as mom told me through the coughs to bring the bed up. She calmly worked through the coughing raising her hand to let me know everything was okay. I was ready to run out and yell, "Nurse" but she assured me that would not be necessary. She is back down and more relaxed now.

Mom says she hears and sees movement of ghosts in the room. They do not bother her because "they are minding their own business." She says they just stand around and are whispering. She thinks they must be hallucinations because my dad saw and heard them when he went through his surgeries too. Mom says she tell us more about the ghosts in a future blog.