Hi again,
It's been a while since I've posted about how Dad's doing, but he's kept us busy! Last night (his second night after the surgery), he had a rough night. His O2 levels dropped below 90 (87) so put him back on O2 for a while, he got a slight fever (100.1) and his blood pressure was dropping. (At one point systolic pressure was 52, but I think he might have been moving and the reading was off). The first thing they did for his pressure was to lower his head, but he didn't like that at all. He was sweating profusely and coughing, restless and couldn't get comfortable. The nurse called his surgeon Dr. Jex sometime after 11:00pm (he was in the OR) and he told her to administer albumin which would (as she explained it) take the fluid that had been accumulating in his tissues back into his bloodstream thereby raising his blood pressure and helping him get rid of the excess fluid. That seemed to work after a bit and his BP got above 90. From 11pm to 2:00 am he got no sleep. The poor guy kept worrying about his blood pressure like there was something he could do about it. It was being measured every 5 minutes and he'd ask me to tell him what it was. When it was below 80 he looked crestfallen, and when it was in the 90s he was so proud of himself! While this was going on, a respiratory nurse came in and had Dad blow on a nebulizer. It looked like Dad was puffing on a big white plastic cigar! He said it worked pretty good, but he was coughing all night long still. Oh, they also gave him some Milk of Magnesium earlier in the evening but that didn't have any noticable effect. Around 3am Amanda came to relieve me and she told us that after I left he improved a lot - his fever went down, more O2 in his blood, stopped coughing and got some sleep. (This makes me very happy, but also worried that I might be bad luck for him, since only when I was on duty did he have a tough time!) But my fears are allayed by the fact that I'm with him right now and he's having a great night. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
This morning Mom went over to relieve Amanda and he had his breakfast, went on a couple walks, and was doing really well. Later on he burshed his teeth, had a shower and I think that really boosted his spirits (it's amazing what a difference being clean can be!)
I personally haven't seen his incision, (I'm the quesey one in the family) but Amanda says she was really suprised to see how thin clean and neat it is. Dad's coumidin level is currently 1.6. He was sleeping from 7 to around 11 straight (just one interruption when one of his doses ran out.) He's up now, I read him some of the posts and he's watching "mindless tv" while I type this.
He hopes that he'll be able to post for himself soon, and hopes everyone is doing well. He also says everyone is probably tired about hearing about himself since Amanda and I are so detailed in our posts! Sorry about that!
G'night for now,
Pamela
PS. Evelyn, about the spirometer - he was up to 2000 this afternoon. About 2/3 of the way there! (He was 3000-3500 pre-op)
