This evening...

November 9, 2012, 5:15pm

Hi,

All in all a good day.  Much more alert and chipper and rarin' to go than yesterday and earlier this morning.  She was feeling pretty good for most of the day, until about the last 1-1 1/2 hours, and we are having a harder time finding the right drug and balance of drugs that will keep her pain manageable for the entire duration of the drug "life". She no longer has the pain pump, so we are managing it with oral meds.  We have tried several and the problem is that, say she can only have a dose every 2.5 hours, the effects are only lasting 45 min to an hour.  She has been in some notable pain for the last hour since the effects of her Oxycodone wore off, but she cant have another dose of that until 7:30 and they cant give her any more Dilaudid until 6:20...She is resting and still right now and that seems to help too.  

Some of the catch-22 here too is that her oxygen concentration measured by the pulse-ox doohickey keeps dropping because she has to be sedentary from pain and weakness etc. so she isn't using the whole of her lungs, so she isnt getting the oxygen concentration she needs.To get that up into the high 90's where it should be, she has to take deep breaths and when she takes deep breaths that makes her pain intensify. We are hoping to that some of this is just 2nd day blues, her body adjusting etc.  Please pray that we find an effective mix of drugs that work, that last and that her body likes in terms of not causing nausea and such.  We would really like to have that balance determined before we go home tomorrow.  I'm nervous about the process of getting her out of bed, moving all our stuff out, getting her into the truck, keeping her comfortable for the 1.5 hour drive home and then getting her settled and balanced once we are home.  Quite honestly that scares me, mainly for her sake.  The human, manish part of me really struggles too because when she is hurting like that there isn't one blessed thing I can do about it.  It's hard to feel powerless when your favorite person on the whole great green earth is in pain like that.

All that having been said that is the raw fact of it, but she is doing ok for right now.  She is sleeping, I'm typing this with my feet propped up on the bed next to her and I can peek over at her and see some peace on her sleeping face, so that is really good.  She isn't hurting much right now so we'll take that victory however short-lived it might be.  She is so dang strong and brave and this will be ok.  She saw her chest for the first time today and took it remarkably well, considering!  She said, "I kinda look like a boy...but I'm a boy without a tumor!" There she goes always looking at the bright side :-)

Now wipe your eyes, I'll wipe mine and we will all take today as a victory.  This is the beginning of a long road as I've said, but we are on the road which feels wonderful.  We spent a month talking about what to do, and now we have actually gotten to do something which is such a relief. We have no doubt that this was the right thing to do.  We have no doubt that this was the right surgical team, and while I'm on that we have seen the surgeon once today and every time we see her and feel her compassion and see the care she feels for Adrienne, we just get more and more impressed with her.  It is beyond the shadow of any doubt that this is the right place for us, and the right team and the right hospital.  So we have gratitude for that.  

Keep on lovin' on her, praying for her, thinking about her and all that good stuff y'all do.  Much thanks from the heart of my bottom...

Over and out.