Paul is doing well.  He has quite a few tubes going in and out of his body at the moment, but we knew that would be the case and  expected it, so no surprise. 

Paul  had a rough first night with pain management.  Paul seems to have a resistance  to some opiate based painkillers.  The Anesthesiologist  came to check on him and ordered a different painkiller to be added to his medicinal regime.   It seem to help a little bit and we will monitor this over the next few hours. The nurses are watching his blood pressure.  Paul’s blood pressure has always been on the low side and the painkillers tend to make it go even lower.    Tonight seems better as he is currently sleeping.

 

Paul has three incisions: One on his right side of the back coming down from the should blade area to the underside of his armpit area, the second is approximately 6 inches from the left side of his neck down to the front of his throat and the third is on the abdomen.  He has four drainage tubes.  One at the base of the incision on his back, a left and right one in his abdomen and one from his chest.  He also has the usual Foley and NG tube.  He also has a thoracic Epidural tube going into his spine.   Needless to say, getting him to be comfortable is a chore.

 

He did sit up in the chair this morning and it brought relief to the pain in his back but this increased the pain in his abdomen.  Sitting up is good as it stretches his lungs and allows him to breathe easier.  We are very watchful of his breathing since they had to collapse the right lung for the surgery.  He sat up this afternoon for over two hours and this really has helped with an overall feeling better. 

 

We will know more next week as they should have the pathology reports back from the surrounding tissue and the lymph nodes that were removed.  They will also do a test to see if the connections of the stomach pull up has any leakage.

 

There was a bit of leakage from his J Tube site and this has us both a bit concerned as there hasn't been any since it was placed in March.  The nurses have been told to keep an eye on it and contact the doctors if they see it leaking more. 

 

I am tired and going to try to get some sleep.

 

Thank you all for your prayers and positive energy.

Jo

 

If all goes well, on Monday they will have him swallow a very small amount of liquid to check for leakage.  If there is leakage, they will give the inside connection more time to heal.  If there is no leakage, then they will start him on a liquid diet and increase it to a soft diet.  We should have all the pathology reports back by Monday too!