Recovery — Day 2: Still working on the pain

Jenny hurts pretty much everywhere.

She had surgery on one side of her back, so it hurts there. And on the other side of her back, she’s having pain where they “didn’t operate.” The nurses think it has something to do with the drains. The doctors say it might be muscle spasms. (It’s not muscle spasms.)

Plus she hurts on both sides in the front. And since they took a chunk from her right hip, that’s really sore and black and blue, too. And then her legs are really sore where they “didn’t operate.”

The good news is that the doctors continue to be very happy with her surgical areas. There are no signs of infection or rejection at this point.

That’s the good news.

The pain is the bad news. She hurts.

The fellow for Dr. Kronowitz (Jenny is under his care for this hospital stay) increased her dosage for narcotics this morning. He did that after Jenny spent a long night of waiting for the next round of pills that was usually a couple hours away.

That increased dosage has helped, but it still wears off before the next round is due. When the nurses come in to empty her drains, it causes her a great deal of discomfort. That part is the worst. It happened today at about 2 p.m.

The nurses have been helpful in trying to ease the pain. They can give her additional boosts of another pain medication through her IV if she needs it. But she’s not using the morphine pump anymore. That was making her too itchy and uncomfortable.

There is talk of her leaving the hospital tomorrow. That has been our expectation all along. And now that she is no longer needing fluids through the IV (another step toward freedom), she looks set for departure tomorrow — which means I’ll be the one that causes the pain when I work with the drains. That sounds fun.

Since it was Valentine’s Day, I wanted to take her for a date around the hospital. They have a cool area at the very top where you can look over the city. That was the site of our Valentine’s Day date.

Jenny on the 24th floor at MD Anderson

Jenny on the 24th floor at MD Anderson

We wanted to share the Peanut Butter Stack that we like so much here, but the word is out about that awesome dessert, apparently. They were sold out. We settled for a chocolate chunk brownie. We split it, which means Jenny let me have three-quarters of it.

Then we wheeled around other parts of the hospital for a change of scenery.

Valentine's Day portrait from Elevator F.

Valentine’s Day portrait from Elevator F.

They are also serving the patients a special Valentine’s Day dinner of Herbed Grilled Chicken with Saffron Broth Reduction.

Valentine's Day Menu.

Valentine’s Day Menu.

We’ll ‘split’ that tonight, too.

 

3 thoughts on “Recovery — Day 2: Still working on the pain

  1. A valentines you will never forget. Its the small stuff, like splitting a chocolate chunk brownie that counts. Just sorry they were out of the peanut butter snack:)

  2. Alan, so glad you’re taking such good care of Jenny. We are still keeping her in our thoughts and hoping for the pain to fade soon. Like tonight. But maybe sneak some extra meds from those nice nurses for the ride home? Oops you don’t have any friends in law enforcement reading this blog, right? If so, jk!

  3. Sorry to hear that the pain control is so out of control. Can’t they overlap two meds like they do for sick kids? There is no reason for her to suffer so much between doses. We are praying for immediate relief.

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