12/13/09

Surgery today on the lower legs. The tibias. They took him about 8:25 am. It's going to be a 5 hour surgery. They are going to put a plate on both tibial plateus (that's the top of the tibea bone, I think) and then a rod in his left tibea. And a pin in his left ankle. The doctor said that this should be the last of the big bone surgeries. He might need a few more in a few months time, but at this point the major surgeries are finished. Now we just have to get his abdomen closed up.
The surgery went fine!
More medine to help get rid of the fluids.
Jim was coughing again today. It's a sight to see. He has a nice strong cough, which is good, but nothing to hold anything back, which is bad. The nurses, are holding his stomach to support it-and it takes all their strength when he coughs.
12/14/09
Jim is over breathing the ventilator a lot, which is good in a way, but it also means that he is probably feeling pain. So they are upping his pain medicine a little. I don't like to think that Jim is in so much pain, but I know that it's inevitable.
They are going to be more agressive with the fluid medication today, in an effort to get more fluid off of him.
Jim is starting to move his head a little, most especially when they are trying to clean out his mouth. You can see his eyes moving under his closed eyelids, and he moves his head away from the nurse ever so slightly.
12/15/09
No change for the worse overnight. So that's good. They changed the dressing on the wound vac again. I usually sit in the birthing center area when I'm waiting for surgeries. It's a much happier place than the surgery waiting area. There are pictures of cute babies on the walls and you see excited grandparents waiting for their grandbabies to be born. I'd much rather sit in a happy place while I'm waiting for my husband to get patched up than in a nervous surgery waiting place.
The fluid medicine is helpng, they pulled off more fluids from him than the day before so I'm really glad. Jim's abdoman looks slightly smaller, though still much larger than it usually is. The swelling in his arms and legs has decreased slightly as well. I brought in a picture of Jim and put it on the wall so the doctors and nurses could see what he really looks like as well. People kept commenting that he looked like this big beefy guy, and I'd say, "No, that's not the way he is at all!" So I thought the picture would help.
Oh, and they started Jim on IV nutrition a few days ago. So that's good.
They're talking about needing to be more aggressive with his lungs. They don't want him coughing, but that's going to impact his lungs negatively. It's a catch 22, really. He can't cough because of his abdomen, but he has to because of the phlegm in his lungs.
Jim is jaundiced now. It's from all the bruising , but he's definately a yellow color. They're monitoring his liver though and don't seem too worried about it. Today when they changed his wound vac they got a good look at all his organs, and they all look really healthy. So that's good.
Ok, I keep changing tenses as I write this, but that's because I'm keeping a journal of notes for Jim, and I write directly to him, and when I transfer the notes to the blog here sometimes I still write "you" instead of "he". It's another grammer thing that I feel I must explain mostly because it would bug me so much if things were going normally for our family! I try to catch them, but I know I've missed a few.