I apologize for not posting an update in over a week. Naturally, things have been a little nutty, and I've just been too tired to think straight enough to post.
As I've been thinking of where to start, a quote from a favorite movie kept coming to mind: Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up. (The Princess Bride) LOL!
First of all, let me say CJ is doing really well! He is recovering at home now and is quite frankly surprising many with his rapid recovery!
Our second night in the hospital was another long night. CJ had not urinated since the catheter was removed the day of the surgery. He had been asked to try to go, but he hadn't been able to. This can happen as a result of the pain meds and isn't really unusual.
At 1:30AM, the nurse woke us up, because the surgery team told our nurse that CJ must urinate. He got out of bed to try but couldn't. CJ was very agitated; which was understandable considering it was the middle of the night, & he was hurting. He said he felt like he needed to go but couldn't. He said his pain level was at 8 on a scale of 1 to 10. Surgery ordered a bladder scan to see how much urine was in the bladder. The scanner read almost 1000cc (1cc = ml, so we're talking a liter!). Surgery ordered a catheter to empty the bladder. CJ got very upset & asked for more time. He really did not want a catheter again (understandably). He requested some more pain meds & something for his stuffy nose. By 2:20AM, still no urination. CJ was given some pain medicine. I spoke to the nurse & requested some Valium for CJ to calm him, hoping relaxing would release urine. After the valium was administered, the nurse gave CJ another 15 minutes to try before she had to give the catheter. Unfortunately, we never saw any progress, so at 2:45AM the nurse administered a catheter to drain the bladder. By the time it was done, 1100ccs of urine had been drained! Even the nurses couldn't believe he was holding that much. Naturally, CJ felt and looked a lot better! We were finally able to go back to sleep.
During the day (Thursday, 2 days post op), CJ continued to do well. He was getting up fairly easily, able to walk around without too much difficulty, eating and keeping it down, pain management was well-controlled...The doctors were even talking about sending us home the next day!
Later in the day, CJ had to be threatened with another catheter but ended up not needing it. We had quite a few visitors that day, which really wore CJ out. Between the pain meds and the lack of sleep the past 2 nights, our hospitality was starting to fade. Thankfully, our friends are understanding.
Friday was a little harder for us. We finally had a good night last night, but CJ was really struggling more with pain. They moved him off the IV pain meds to orals, and he was dealing with a little more pain as a result. He went for a post-operative x-ray to check the bar placement, and the side view required CJ to raise his arms. This really bumped the pain level up. They said he would probably be able to go home later in the day. However, CJ was really uncomfortable going home before he knew the pain was well-controlled (especially at night) with the oral pain meds.
Since he was dealing with more pain after the x-rays (which looked great, by the way), and because he was so nervous about leaving yet, the doctors agreed that CJ should stay one more night to make sure the oral pain meds were balanced and working.
He did pretty good Friday night, and around 11:30AM on Saturday morning, CJ was discharged! We were all very happy to be heading home. I could definitely tell he was feeling better when CJ opened one of his balloons, sucked in the helium, and started yelling at me from the other room! LOL!
No comments:
Post a Comment