April 22, 2009

April 22, 2009
Lynn had a pretty good day today. She got up too early, but said that she felt pretty good. The nurses moved her from the recliner to the bed yesterday, and that was her first night in a bed with the new plumbing. I went to see her around lunch time, and arrived just in time for her to get the chest drainage tubes pulled. That was certainly not what I expected. However, since I had to miss lunch in order to go see her, it DID have the side benefit of making me lose my appetite. Actually, it was no big deal. Lynn had been fretting about it ever since she found out she needed surgery, since the first time around, it had been extremely painful for her when the surgeon took them out. Well, the nurse did it this time, and she was much more careful. Lynn said it hardly hurt at all. In fact, for the first one, she didn't even know that it was out until we told her. The second one, she noticed, but it still wasn't all that bad. Nurses seem to be a little more considerate of a patient's pain than the surgeons. I guess that is understandable...surgeons are just not used to their patients being conscious!

The nurse also pulled the catheter, which just left the IV and the oxygen feed. They asked if Lynn wanted to go for a walk. She said that sounded fine to her. So, she dumped the oxygen feed, the nurse grabbed the IV stand, and off they went. She did quite well, and didn't feel much fatigue or pain. She was able to make a full lap around the floor, which is far better than most patients. The nurse was monitoring the oxygen levels, and was a little concerned at the end, as Lynn's were a bit low. Other than that, it went very well.

After the chest tubes were pulled, Lynn felt much much better. She had all sorts of pain when she breathed deeply...that was relieved significantly when the tubes were gone. However, she still has trouble breathing deeply. She has a device that measures how much she can breathe in. They want her to get to 2500, but she can only reach 1000 at this point. It looks like her lungs are having a hard time recovering from being deflated during the surgery. This was exactly what happened the first time, so it is not a big surprise. It took her months to get back to normal last time, and that will probably be the case this time as well.

We had hoped she would get out of the hospital tomorrow, Thursday. However, it looks more likely that we'll have to wait until Friday at this point, at least that is what Dr. Blossom said. Maybe he'll change his mind once he sees how well she is doing, but we aren't going to hold our collective breaths.