Yesterday Karen's diet went from clear liquids, to liquids, which is a bigger change than it sounds like. They also dropped the Fentanyl and tried out some different oral meds before ending up on percocet. Her pain level was tolerable enough to sleep, either that or the does was just high enough to knock her out. Either way, she got some sleep last night.
They say Karen should certainly be good to go home soon. We're hoping Friday. She's off the TPN now, and is cord, tube, and IV free. She's getting around a lot better and her voice is getting stronger after having had the NG tube out for a couple days. (If you're going to catch her in the hospital, now is probably the best time to do it.) That said, they need to do more bladder scans today; if she's still retaining 200 ml of urine or more, they want her to learn to self catheterize before being released. They say retaining that much urine can result in an infection. And, of course, she needs to try out solid foods at some point.
