SUPERSTAR. That is what one of Ken's doctors called him this morning. He is doing GREAT. The nurses had reserved a room in ICU for the night for Ken, but he did so well in recovery that they decided to put him in a regular room on the pulminary floor. He is in room 917. But we had to wait till his room was cleaned, so we didn't get here till after 11:00 PM. The recovery nurses were great though and they let me stay in with him the whole time. By 10:00, we were both asleep in recovery. It was a long day.
Ken has 2 chest tubes in his right side, one up high and one down low. He has been leaking clear red liquid which is expected, blood from the surgery. The doc was very pleased to see no milky white stuff. So are we. He still has his epidural in his back where they are administering pain meds and he is in some pain, but not unbearable. They are going to put a pick line in him and feed him thru that for a few days. So still nothing but water. They want his system to not have a chance to make any milky white stuff till after his lung cavity has a chance to heal. He is actually sitting up in the chair now. Probably will stay there most of the day. I think he is psycologically still afraid to recline very far and his bed doesn't sit him up very well.
The doc said that he needs to expand his lungs as much as possible so the lung would adhere to the lining of his chest wall and to his ribs. The reason for scrubing the lining and for the baby powder was so the lung would stick to it and then create scar tissue to stay stuck. So, if the liquid tries to come back, it will not be able to shrink his lung and will need to go somewhere else. Hopefully, it will just be absorbed into his body. If the docs are pleased, so are we.
He said he saw the place that the previous surgeon took the biopsy from. He sewed it up as well as the places that they removed the 2 lymph nodes yesterday.
The hospital is the University of Colorado Hospital, 2 years old in June. His daughter Anna made the comment that the Buffs were saving him now. LOL. His room is in the front and we have a great view of the city. The lights were beautiful last night. I hear there is a bunch of snow in Fort Collins this morning, but not to much here. I hope it clears up some before we leave so that we can see the mountains. The windows cover his whole wall, so we have a great view all the way south. And from the end of the hall, you can see all of downtown and the mountains. Ken will be happy when he gets to walk down there.
Hope you all have a great weekend. Can't call Ken Squirt or Gusher any more. Now he is Superstar.
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Hey! Congrats on a great surgery. Just one piece of advice: when they take-out the epidural, stay laying flat: you can spring a leak that causes what's called a "spinal headache": I've had one (for over a weak) and in comparison to migraines, whoa. However, the really good thing about that kind of thing is that if happens, you can mosey into Poudre and they've got THE guy for plugging those up (a little blood squirted in between the vertebrae and inner cord and the headache is gone, the leak is plugged, and the back is sore, but better than a bad headache).
ReplyDeleteIt's very unlikely that you'd get one of those, but just in case, ask that they allow you at least two hours to lay flat without moving much so that your spine where the epidural enters may plug-up, and then take it really easy. Trust me, the wait would be worth it vs. the risk of a "spinal headache", really.
Congrats. Hope you'll someday be back at papers! : )
--Corbett guy.
Well, I say "Go Buffs!" Or whoever it takes. So thankful things are going well. Hang in there..both of you. Let us know if there is anything we "Ram Fans" can do. LOL!
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