I didn’t get to blogging last night. Patrick has had some really good moments, some really difficult moments, and a very busy treatment schedule for the past 2 days. This is the first quiet moment I’ve had. So let me catch you up.
Two nights ago, I emptied Patrick’s ostomy bag and put him to bed. (In case you don’t know, an ostomy or stoma is a place where a surgeon has made a small piece of intestine come out of the skin. It drains into a bag. Patrick needs to have one so they can easily and safely do scopes to watch for rejection for the next year. Eventually, they’ll take it back down and reconnect him.)
Anyway.. I put Patrick to bed a little before midnight. By morning, his ostomy bag was still empty. When his nurse gave him his morning meds, he couldn’t keep them down. And as the day wore on, it seemed his discomfort was growing more and more. But we told the team and the surgeon said get him up and maybe it will wake up. If not, then call and a resident could come use a small tube to help break up and drain out any small blockage.
Well, 2 p.m. rolled around and still nothing and Patrick’s belly really hurt. We called the resident. She was really hesitant and thought that it was dangerous to put a tube into Patrick’s stoma and new bowel. So she wasn’t going to do it without permission. The fellow (who is over the residents) had been in the hall pulling up chest x-rays during the conversation, so he hadn’t heard the instructions. It took another hour and a little bit of firm insistence before she finally consented to come do the procedure.
But, once she did. Patrick felt lots better. The nursing staff decided that they would insist that this be done once every 8 hours at least. Because of that, Patrick was much more comfortable for the rest of the afternoon.
All that pain made it so Patrick didn’t feel much like getting up and moving much. Thank goodness for family, though. When Brian’s brother Mark heard that we were going to be here for Thanksgiving, he and his wife immediately started to make plans to come celebrate Thanksgiving with us. They rented a house for the weekend so they’d have a kitchen to cook in. They drove here from Denver, arriving Wednesday night. Then, the night before Thanksgiving, they went and found a grocery store, bought all the food for the meal, and went to work.
So yesterday morning, while Heidi stayed behind and cooked, Mark and his kids came to play. They threw a ball, blew bubbles, put on a mini puppet show. They brought Patrick big smiles, even though he didn’t feel very well. Then, they went to help pack up the food and Patrick took a nap. He slept through dinner, and that was really ok, since he wouldn’t have been eating anyway.
For a Thanksgiving dinner in the hospital, this meal was amazing. As I’ve said before, this hospital is abandoned on weekends and holidays. So we set up dinner on one of the long tables in the cafeteria. We all ate until we were well stuffed. The kids played in the cafeteria and we rested and talked.
Then I came upstairs so Patrick wouldn’t wake up alone. Good thing, too, as he woke up crying in pain. His nurse got him a hot pack and some pain meds, though, and with his belly a little less full it helped.
Brian came up after his family had left for the evening and with pain medicine on board, Patrick was ready for a walk. We got the nurse to bring in a cart for some portable oxygen. His walking was stiff and clumsy and guarded… But getting up and moving seemed to have helped his lungs. His oxygen saturation was much better for the rest of the evening. That, after a day of restarting respiratory therapy, seemed to make a really big difference.
It was a busy evening, though. Nursing staff is short on a holiday so the nurses were running like crazy. But still, with several antibiotics on the IV pump in the evening, the pumps just beeped and beeped. Finally, we made it to sleep at midnight. Unfortunately, vitals woke up at 5 and then labs at 5:30 and so we were both exhausted by morning. Therefore, this late post. I’ll start writing about today next and hopefully post after adding a bit more right at bedtime.
Patrick Hoopes 