Tough Going

Karen's been vomiting about once an hour and pretty much everything that went in has come back out. The doctors feel this is an ileus, and the bowels haven't completely woken up from her last surgery. They were overly optimistic in allowing her solid foods so soon. So for now she's been taken off liquids and solids, with the exception of a few small sips of water.

She was taken off the IV pain meds this afternoon as scheduled yesterday when they saw her pain level dropping. But with her puking up all her oral pain meds, she's in more pain than usual. They did eventually realize the problem and they gave her something intravenous. They're also pretty sure she's puked up everything she ate, and so that's over with. Once her stomach has calmed down a bit more, she will start back with a liquid diet again.

Bump in the Road

Karen finally got to eat some solid food yesterday; so that was 12 days without solid food. Unfortunately it made her nauseous and one of the anti nausea drugs made her loopy and dizzy, which left her stomach feeling unsettled. Needless to say, she didn't get much sleep last night. When they brought her breakfast, she lost her dinner. Skipped breakfast, and it happened again a couple hours later.

Yesterday I was happy to see her heart rate so much lower than it had been, but it slowly went back up throughout the day. Starting just below 100 when sleeping, hanging around the low 100s in the early morning, and climbing back to the 120s by evening. It didn't drop as much last night with the lack of sleep and stomach issues. Someone said another HIPEC patient had such a fast heart rate for so long they finally sent him home on beta blockers.