Karen requested the NG tube be taken out around noon. She said it was even painful coming out, which is strange because she usually only describes it as feeling weird when being removed; they've never hurt coming out before. One of the nurses had suggested there might be some scar tissue from having had one for so long before. She's still on a liquid diet, but should be starting on solid food sometime tomorrow.
They've had her on Lasix, a dietetic, since surgery. But it didn't make much of a difference until the catheter came out, which also happened yesterday, but got lost in all the excitement. So not only is she going to the bathroom frequently as she adjusts to using her lower intestines again, but she's peeing frequently for 5 or 6 hours after her Lasix. She refuses the 9pm dose, but all and all she was still up a lot last night, and we're expecting the same tonight.
Yesterday and the day before, the doctors had been saying her bloating was going down, but she told me she didn't feel a difference herself. Today is the first day where she can actually feel the bloated going away, and seemed a little excited about it. Her pain level is slowly creeping back up, and this concerns me a little since the same thing happened before they had to go back into surgery to replace her mesh. It seems too soon, but I suppose she also might be developing a tolerance to the hydromorphone the PCA pump administers.
