Day 3 Post-Op

On Friday morning, I got up and headed to the hospital solo. (Dad stayed home for some grandkid time, which was wonderful for both of us AND the kids!)

When I arrived at Mom's room about 9:00 am, a transporter was taking her down to radiology in a wheelchair for a CT scan. Overnight her fever had continued, and she'd been having difficulty breathing; the concern was to watch out for a pulmonary embolism (a blood clot in or near the lungs).

The transport down was difficult - it was the first time Mom had been sitting upright and out of her bed since the surgery. She was feeling a lot of nausea and needed a lot of help to get onto and back down from the CT scanner bed. When we finally made it back up to her room, she got Phenergan (which makes her VERY sleepy in addition to relieving her nausea) and drifted off to sleep.

Around 10:00 am, Dr Gilbert (one of the residents working with Dr Burke) came by and said that the CT was clear: no blood clots! However, because her fever remained high and they were unsure of the cause, they began giving her antibiotics.

At that point, Mom was waking up from the Phenergan but started to have some vomiting. Both the resident and one of the Oncology nurses came in while I was there, checking her wound site and listening to her belly. Her abdomen is very distended right now and she's having some edema in her legs as well.


I headed back home at about 11:15. I hated to leave while Mom was feeling sick to her stomach, but I thought that Dad would want to be there if/while they put the NG tube in. As it turns out, even though we didn't know about the timing, God did! A good friend was running errands in Savannah & though she hadn't planned on stopping by the hospital today, realized she was close by and decided to just pop in. She arrived a few minutes after I left, and stayed with Mom when she saw that she was still having vomiting. She left after Dad arrived - but I am so, so thankful that she showed up at just the perfect time so that Mom wasn't all by herself.


Mom has an ilius (sp?) -- as I understand it, it's a "slow spot" in your bowels where your digestive system just hasn't really woken up after surgery yet. That made the small amount of liquid she's taken by mouth, have nowhere to go, hence the nausea and vomiting.

Her nurses put in an NG (nasogastric) tube to relieve the distension and clear out the stomach. After a few days of recovery time they will take the tube out and start her on liquids again. This complication may push back her going-home date by a few days.


Prayer needs for today: pray that the NG tube brings her fast relief from the discomfort & nausea, that the antibiotics work, and that whatever infection is causing her fever will go away soon. And pray thanksgiving along with us that there was NO clot on the ct scan!

We'll keep everyone posted.