Friday, February 5, 2010

2 Days After Surgery

Hope everyone is staying warm and dry in this nasty weather. Today has been a very long but productive day for Tim. He got up out of bed again this afternoon where he stood for about 20 minutes while his sheets were changed for him. The second time he got up seemed to go much more smoothly than the first as he was more comfortable with the process.

During lunch & dinner today he discovered the true definition of hospital food. He managed to get a few spoonfuls of chicken broth down at lunch but barely took a sip of the beef broth at dinner before he decided that it just wasn't up to his discerning tastes. He ate part of another Luigi's icy at lunch and actually managed to finish one at dinner. Although he told me repeatedly just how amazing they are and how much I needed to get one, I'm thinking that he will never want to see another Italian Ice once all of this is over.

One of the nurses suggested that watching the food network sometimes will help get your stomach moving and growling again which can, in turn, help the rest of his digestive system get a jump start. Needless to say I was pretty happy with that determination since it means it was "medically necessary" to keep the TV off of ESPN and we (or I) just happened to be lucky enough that he changed it over right as Paula Deen (my favorite) came on. This also brought an additional benefit to Tim, he got a nice long 2 hour nap in this afternoon. He has mentioned feeling some spasms in his abdomen so who knows, maybe this "medicine" is actually working.

During his vital check this evening his PCT helped us to come up with a plan to start backing him down on his morphine pump. Now instead of hitting his button every 12 minutes he is hitting it every 30. This is still managing his pain just as much but is allowing him to sleep much more soundly (he is snoring loudly in the background as I write this) and from what we understand will help speed up the healing process both now and later as he begins to switch over to pain tablets rather than the pump.

Thank you all for your encouraging notes on this site. I make sure that I pick out a few to read to him each time he wakes up. He is absolutely astounded that so many people are in his corner and each time mentions how amazed he is about all of you that are following his progress. Although the doctors are working on healing his body right now I really believe that all of you are helping to heal his spirit through all you have done and continue to do for him.

One more note, that I can't believe I forgot to mention earlier today (pbly has something to do with hearing the news at 4am), but Dr. Robbins informed us that the results of Tim's blood work came back completely clear. Although we are still waiting on path results to find out if the cancer spread to his lymph nodes, it was excellent news to know that they didn't find any signs of it in his blood and helps add to the hope that it was contained within that one spot within his colon.

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