Long Day's Night

Rest finally came to us at 5:00 am this morning. Clem just couldn't get settled and the pain was just too overwhelming for sleep. I totally understand how people become addicted to pain meds. My husband is totally anti medication and he turned into Jack Nicholas from the Shining last night when I refused to give him his meds early.

I realize that I haven't described his incision. It starts underneath his diaphragm level with his left nipple and extends across his chest and under his right arm. It is truly a beautiful thing! The skin surface has been super glued together so it looks neat and tidy and has never had a dressing covering it. Underneath his arm he has the famous "grenade" drain which is as much of a complication indicator as a drain. We are looking for anything green or dark brown to exit and this is an early warning sign that something is wrong with his bile ducts. Leaky bile ducts are bad! This is a major complication that can result in very bad infection so it is very important that it is there. Basically there is a tube that is snaked around inside his tender surgery site and exits under his arm. As you can guess this is a major source of pain right now.

I finally convinced Clem to try ice on the exit site last night as a final effort to pass enough time for more meds. Amazingly after some coaching on breathing, relaxing and how to break the pain cycle he fell asleep for an hour and a half. At 5:00 we ate a small snack, loaded him up with pain killers, placed a new ice pack, and astonishingly woke up at 11:00. Six hours of uninterrupted sleep!!!!! He looks like a new man right now sitting on the sofa returning emails and has had no pain medication this morning. Jess is feeding him non-stop and there appears to be no sign of the dreaded nausea today.

What a fantastic morning. Rain on the roof, moderate temperature, and every window in my house reveals a view of nature instead of a roof top or parking lot. I think I am going to sit in the hot tub in the rain and attempt to ease the ache in my hips from sleeping in the floor for a few days. Our daughter and grandson have an infectious happiness that is a welcome replacement to the Hospital vampires coming in steadily for more blood. It is good to be home with the hardest part behind us.