There's been no progress with the blockage. Although her abdomen pain has completely dissipated. She didn't need any extra pain medication through the night and she's remained pain free throughout the day. Well, except for the irritation in her throat from the NG tube, but that's extremely minor compared to the abdominal pain she was in yesterday. She seems to be in good spirits.
She didn't sleep all that much last night. They gave her the steroid Dexamethasone in the evening to try and reduce the inflammation in her intestines. It can also make you feel energized, and kept her up until past midnight despite not sleeping the night before. (Today it was given in the morning.) When she did go to sleep, all the medications and vitals checks weren't lined up so she kept getting woken up every couple hours. Certain medications are prescribed with a time they must be given, and there are a bunch of different teams working with you, so the medication times don't always line up. But once we've been there a day or two they get everything adjusted pretty well. And since she's off the strong IV pain meds they don't have to take vitals every two hours anymore. So hopefully tonight will be better.
The doctors have been throwing around the term frozen abdomen. This is when your intestines gel into a solid mass, as opposed to how they normally are, free flowing like a bowl of spaghetti. This is usually caused by scar tissue or cancer. And while Karen has a lot of scar tissue from past surgeries, they say the major cause is most likely all of those little nodules in her abdomen growing and sticking to everything. This makes surgery a very complicated option. It'd be like trying to cut into a block of fruitcake without hitting any fruit. The risks can easily outweigh the benefits. To the point where it's not uncommon to simply insert a "venting tube" through the neck and into the stomach and send you home. This lets you suction your stomach anywhere, even at home. You can typically live another 25 to 30 days in the comfort of your home, rather than spending your last days in the hospital. They tell us this isn't necessarily what will happen this time, but it's the path Karen's on, and something that will likely be done in the future if it doesn't happen now.
They told us they like to wait three days to see if there is any improvement before "changing approaches." I asked for more specifics, like would they be inserting the tube at that time, but they just said they'd prefer to wait until those three days are up and then reevaluate the situation and decide what to do then. I can't tell if they are just trying to keep us positive and our minds off the alternative, or if they really aren't sure how close we are to this cold reality. We still have all of tomorrow for things to start moving on their own again, and my guess is if there's still no progress we won't hear any options until sometime Friday. The lack of progress has me worried, but we're both trying very hard to remain positive.
