Day 13 of recovery

7/13/14

Day 13 of recovery

It’s still pretty hard today.  Last night I actually got a ½ way decent night’s sleep since Ty stayed at the hospital.  He only had about ½ hr of sleep & Alexa got about 1 ½ hrs total.  When Dr. C came in last night & the pain team was figuring out the dosage of oxycodone she should be on we knew that dosage would not begin to control the pain.  They insisted that with that along with the morphine it should be sufficient.  We kept trying to tell them that we didn’t want to give her the morphine anymore since it wasn’t helping & was contributing to her prob of not being able to go pee.  They had been giving it to her every 2 hrs the entire day & she had been in terrible pain & nauseated the whole day.  Finally about 4 in the morn Ty talked to the dr that was there & asked her to explain to him how they figured out the pain medication dosage.  He said they were figuring it in compared with the morphine they had been giving her which wasn’t doing anything for her at all & was only making things worse.  She couldn’t really argue with that & decided to go up on the dosage 5 milligrams.  After thinking about it for a second he went out & talked to her again & told her, “No, that is just a waste since we already know it won’t do any good.  We know she needs at least 20 milligrams for it to work at all.  She’s been up all night pretty much for 2 nights now & has been throwing up cuz the pain hasn’t been under control at all.  She hasn’t been able to walk like she needs to do to heal properly unless the pain is under control.”  She finally agreed to give her the full dose & that’s when she was finally able to get a bit of sleep but now we were playing catch up again so it would take a few times to get on top of the pain again.  Dr. C came in this morn & I told him that her stomach looked really bloated.  He told them to leave her g tube on suction most of the day & to make her j/p tube so it was on suction & they got sooooo much drainage out of both.  Speaking of the g tube, that is the one that is hooked up to the suction, or as I call it, the vacuum.  It’s so weird to watch when she eats a Popsicle & a few seconds later we see it being sucked on of the g tube into the “vacuum!”  I was discussing this with my Dad tonight & we got to thinking that we should all get g tubes put in & then we could eat all that we wanted & not have to worry about it harming us, haha!  It would be great on Thanksgiving!!  Wouldn’t that be a great diet?  When I mentioned it to Alexa she didn’t think it was such a great idea, haha!!  Oh, something funny that happened the other day, Alexa called the nurse on the call button & asked if she could have a cup of ice & somehow they thought she asked for French fries.  She thought that was a very strange request for someone who hadn’t eaten for a few days & called the dr to see if it was ok.  She came in the room to tell us that he said no & we started laughing so much!  Also yesterday I called down to the room service to see what was on the list for Alexa to eat & she told me that it said she could have any soft foods such as mashed potatoes or pudding, stuff like that.  I kind of laughed & told her that she hadn’t eaten anything for 12 days & was hooked up to a g tube & that would probably clog it up.  She told me she would call the dr & then call me back.  It seems they have their communication screwed up a bit, haha! 

This afternoon I got a call from Tyson telling me that he was extremely tired that his brain wasn’t functioning at all today.  About an hr or so later I got a call from Shayla asking me what she should do when Tyson’s headache gets so bad that he is thrashing around on the floor & his face is beet red & he is sweating so much.  I told her she needed to find the muscle relaxers & give him one & then right then I had Ty call Bro Butz, our home teacher, to go over quickly & give him a blessing.  He had already taken some Advil which hadn’t helped & we had Shayla get an ice pack to put on the back of his neck & I stayed on the phone with them till Bro Butz got there.  I felt completely helpless not being there with him!!  That is a very hard thing to go thru!  After he got the blessing I talked to them again & she told me that his head still hurt pretty bad so I had her give him some other pain killers, thinking that it would probably knock him out.  It didn’t quite do that though, it just brought it down to where it is normally.  This time he said was different than all of the other attacks.  He said that usually his hands & legs get numb & tingly but this time his face, hand & legs got numb & even his belly started getting numb & tingly.  I called back later & he said he was just so tired & weak.  I have talked to Dr. Lowry & he will adjust him tomorrow & Debbie said she would see that he gets there.  I’m so thankful to have so many good friends & family who will step in to help us out!!  It’s a horrible feeling to be so far away when your child is going thru something like that!! 

Well, Ty has returned to RMH & is hopefully getting some good sleep tonight & I have gone over the plan of action with the nurse for the night to help Alexa get the best sleep possible so hopefully I will have a good report for in the morn!!  My heart is so full tonight of gratefulness to Heavenly Father for the tender mercies.  Alexa has been able to walk today & even went outside for about 2 seconds!!  She finally had her pain under control & I’m so grateful Tyson was able to get the help that he needed.  Thank you Shayla, for playing Mom while I was gone!!

Here's Alexa's 2 seconds of being outside today! She wasn't too happy about it.