Ups, downs, ins & hopefully outs

(Scott writing)

Today was a long day at the hospital.

Yesterday's surgery went better than any of us had expected. Prior to surgery mom was in probably her best mental state in weeks. She was alert and ready.

The actual surgery lasted nearly an hour, the time for her recovery from end of surgery to arriving in her room was much longer... probably three times as long. Once in the room she was groggy, but immediately asking for water, awake, but not in a lot of pain. She wanted a Pepsi so bad, but got only some ice-water soaked swabs.

This morning she was alert. Having the naso-gastric tube removed was a huge step. It had been in her nose and throat since Saturday. The doctor heard signs of movement in her bowels so she was allowed clear liquids and Jello. We were surprised, but happy about that.

Shortly after lunch, where mom had strawberry Jello and some sips of Pepsi, the hospitalist visited her to listen to her heart, which had an abnormal rhythm. This discovery rather quickly precipitated into a rushed effort to move mom from her big, cushy room in the Butler Memorial Hospital Tower to a cramped, shared room on the same floor in the "main section." A hallway spot instead of a window.

The move, into a wheelchair and out of the wheelchair into a bed was rough. Moments after being put in the new bed, Mom tossed up the Jello (which was a disturbing red color). It took them what seemed like forever to get her IV's re-set up, and to make her however comfortable as she could be.

Welcomed visits from Friends and Family today made things a little more chaotic. A trip to X-Ray didn't help much either. But what especially DID NOT help was the same hospitalist's innaccurate reading of the X-Rays when she announced to us all that mom had a blockage in her bowels and she couldn't eat or drink anything. I don't remember which of us said it, but someone finally said "WAIT - that's what the doctor removed yesterday!" To which she reiterated her statement, that it must have grown back in place again - or something like that.

The resulting few hours of serious worry were relieved when my mom's surgeon, Dr. Lee, came into the room after reviewing the same X-Rays and let us know that the tumors had NOT grown back and that the problem was the bowel needs to heal a little more before we jump back into Jello. Clear liquids approved for the moment. The obstruction is still gone, Mom's intestines just need a bit more time to "wake up" and start moving things along.

So today was a series of ups & downs.We are all hoping that her bowels properly wake up and tomorrow we'll have more ups than downs and we'll finally get some "outs" as things work well and push push push things along and out.