Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Recovery time

Already there is quite a bit of recovery progress. When The Boy came out of surgery and we met him in the PACU (post-anesthesia care unit), he had no NG tube, only blow-by oxygen, and he looked...good. The next few hours in the surgical recovery room were a bit rough as they tweaked his medicine. He has an epidural and received a bit of Dilaudid (pain med) overnight. In the epidural is ropivacaine and clonidine. Since The Boy took clonidine for blood pressure before, it is not surprising that his blood pressure is low with that med being infused into his spine.

The Boy tried juice overnight, but it came back this morning. Diet-wise, he is permitted to try clears, but the nurse said that she didn't hear too much in terms of bowel sounds. Maybe he was waking up a bit in there, but slowly.

He may be discharged before the end of the week.

As for my own recovery...we were taken to some mighty dark places leading up to this surgery, and to (possibly) receive the best news ever is such a blessing to us. It is likely that The Boy will continue his treatment as before but we haven't heard that officially. But hey--we'll take it.

2 comments:

Caroline said...

Glad to hear that he is on the road to recovery... praying for all of you.

Jennifer said...

Yay! I'm glad he is recovering and the news is good.

I can only imagine the dark places you all went. I was worried for him and I never met him. I already wondered how you could even handle what was on your plate let alone what could have been found.

Every time I see one of my 3rd graders I imagine David being like him when he is older. I haven't looked up his entire record, but he is listed as "cancer - kidney removed." He is happy, healthy, well-behaved, and pretty smart. I would never have guessed that he dealt with cancer. So...when I see Dylan I think of David.