Ok, today’s start was not the best. During the night, they had to find another IV site and apparently my veins don’t like the torture either because they keep hiding. Not sure how many times it took to get it in. As of now, I think I have counted a minimum of 15 different needle sticks in just my arms. My right arms is bruised from my wrist half way up to my elbow from the anestheologist trying to get the arterial line in. The top of my right hand was starting to worry me, it was getting really red and it was moving up my arm, so they finally took that one out.
As Bryan walked in this morning, he said, “Well, this day hasn’t been too good yet.” Then proceeds to tell me that someone has hit our van and took off. He is assuming it happened in the parking garage here. Of course they didn’t leave a note, so we will have to eat the $500 deductible for that one too. He says there is just a gouge in the paint from the back wheel to the bumper. Man, we just can not get ahead.
Yesterday, I got my drain tubes out. Yeah, they weren’t gentle about that either. I had two of them right under the vertical inscission. Each one is about the size of a small garden hose. After they pulled them out, then they had to tighten up the stitches that were holding them in place and close up the holes they left. OMG!!!!!! They had already either taken out the wires for my pacemaker or disconnected them. I don’t have a pacemaker but apparently, they put them in in case I would have needed one and they could have just hooked up those wires to an external one.
Oh, I forgot to tell you, I started running a fever and found out I have urinary tract infection on top of all of this!
I have the bandage off of my chest. I am not sure what day that happened. I was thinking maybe yesterday, but Bryan thinks it was Wednesday. They got me up and walking today. Man, my heart pumps so hard now. Not anything like before the surgery. If I have ever talked to you about Kai’s heart, the one thing I was always concerned about w/ him was the fact that his heart pounds so hard, you can see it thru his clothes. Yeah, well, mine does that now too. I am hoping w/ time and proper adjustment of my medications, it will calm down a litte. I think that is contributing to my tiredness.
Right after Bryan got here this morning, someone came to wisk me away again. I was starving. I had been looking forward to having breakfast for the last 2 hours and now they wanted to delay it longer. ARGH! Thank God Bryan was here though, he told them they had to go very slow because he didn’t want me getting sick again from the wheelchair race the day before. The guy said he was taking me to x-ray again. I asked him why, I had one the day before. Turns out we weren’t going to x-ray, we were going to the cardiac diagnostic lab for an echo. By the time we had gotten there, my heart was hurting again. I had been sitting there for at 30 minutes by the time they actually took me back to do the echo. I was in sooooooooooo much pain. They said they had already called my nurse for some more pain meds, but I was sure they wouldn’t bring any down, because I had just had some 2 hours earlier. Just as I got on the table, she showed up w/ some Toradol (which usually does the trick), but by this time I was crying. I seem to do a lot of that lately. Just thinking about crying makes me cry. Anyway, I had these pains during the night and they did an EKG and said something about an “abnormal T” something. So, I guess this echo was to check things again post op to make sure everything was still ok. The tech who did it said “Well, the good news is that your aorta looks great” I asked her if there was anything there that would make my heart hurt like it had been doing and she said she didn’t see anything.
They got me up for a short walk this morning after the trip for the echo. All I really wanted to do was sleep. I was worn out and tired of being pushed around, but I took the little walk. I told my nurse after that, I was going to take a nap and I did not want anyone coming in for anything. I just needed a little nap. I had just got done eating my lunch (YUK!). They had already told me that I needed to go for a longer walk and go up some stairs. And I needed to take a shower today. I didn’t know how I was going to muster up that much energy, but hopefully the nap would help. I tried to lay on my left side, uh, yeah, no go. That was just way too painful. So I turned to my right side and was able to rest for about an hour. They keep wanting to put me in a chair, but it kills by back and neck and I just can’t sit there that long. I need to lay down. They don’t understand that and I don’t know why. I have had nothing but problems w/ my back and neck since I woke up in ICU. You’d think they could recall that much. Anyway, after my nap, I got more meds and got up and took a longer walk and did the stairs, then Bryan helped me take a shower. That was quite the ordeal. It is very difficult to raise my arms above my head. Although Bryan colors my hair great, he can’t dry it and make it look presentable. But, I tell you, I sure am lucky to have him. He is awfully good to me. He has taken very good care of me. And he watches out for me.
I’ve had enough for today. I get to take my Zanaflex tonight, so hopefully I will be able to sleep good for at least 3 hours. I’m worn out. I’ve only had the one hour rest/nap today. I would like to get out tomorrow, but the day nurse said she didn’t think that was going to happen unless they can control my pain. So, if not tomorrow, then I should be able to go home on Sunday. Kai wants to come home on Sunday too.
Later for now! Ciao!
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