Striking the balance

We are waiting for a bed to become available in surgery recovery, but as soon as one is available, that's where we'll be going.

The Boy has had issues with throwing up stomach acid and bile. It's really disgusting. He has an NG tube, but for awhile it was just venting instead of being suctioned. Problem was, it built up and he kept bringing it up, so the nurse turned on the suction again and confirmed with surgery that it was fine to do that.

Here's the problem: the pain medication slows down the bowel's return to normalcy. However, pain is bad, and it hurts, so the pain medication is necessary. Until his stomach works, he has to have the NG tube in there. However, the NG tube itself probably feels pretty horrible. The doctor from the pain team explained, further, that many times, patients' pain med requirements decrease once they are able to get the NG tube removed. They turned down the pain meds this morning, and he hasn't had pain issues so much as stomach problems.

Furthermore, we want to get him off of the pain medication as soon as we can, so that he can start to return to normal.