Karen actually managed to get a decent night's sleep last night. We're getting fewer random visits from doctors, and things seem to be calming down a little as far as the bathroom goes. We were pretty happy things were slowing down, but she actually hasn't had a bowel movement since yesterday before bed. There doesn't seem to be any less swelling in her abdomen today; if anything, this has caused more pressure. No one seems too concerned at this point, but it's been over 24 hours.
The palliative team beat the surgical team in this morning. But neither came until after 8am. We didn't even get the super early doctors around 4 or 5am. We are thinking Karen must be less "interesting" now, and figure it was a good sign. They lowered the continuous dosage on her painkiller some more, but still haven't transitioned her away from the PCA pump. Her pain medication is the last thing she gets via IV, everything else has been transitioned over to pill form.
Next, the surgeon came in with a helper. He pressed and squeezed the drainage out of the surgical site. There was so much drainage. He said that the JP drain must had gotten blocked, perhaps by a clot, and came out too early. The whole process looked quite painful, but Karen seemed fine and wasn't wincing or anything. She says she doesn't feel much on the surface near the surgical incision, but later in the day the whole area was certainly more painful. The doctor said it was now purulent, which I've read is just a fancy way to say it's now draining pus, but it does mean there's some kind of infection going on. She's still taking the antibiotics for the UTI, so maybe they are hoping that will help with the infection.
When she woke this morning her pain level was at a 2 or 3 out of 10; the best it's been her whole stay. But between the increased pressure, lower pain meds, and the manipulation of the wound, her pain level had gone up quite a bit by mid day. It was back around a 7. To be fair we've also done more walking today than ever before as well, so that's also bound to raise her pain level a bit. Laying in bed now before going to sleep it seems to have dropped a little, perhaps to a 4 or 5, but this is mostly because she isn't moving around.
Everyone seems to think we'll be out of here in 2 or 3 days. This is the same time frame they gave us directly following the surgery. In fact, for the first half of our stay everyone kept estimating 2 or 3 days. This happened for about a week, and then they stopped giving us estimates. At one point we were told, "Don't worry we won't send you home until you're better." We weren't asking, but they must be so use to people asking that they felt obligated to provide such information. We can't help but find a little humor in the new estimates of "2 to 3 days."
