Post Surgery, day 10

Sorry I did not post this morning, but since Barbara will likely be in the hospital for another 7-10 days, we decided this was a good time for me to make a trip home to do some laundry, cut the grass (just got it done before the rain this morning), water plants, get mail and a few other things.  I wanted to do this before our son goes home so someone is with her every day.

From what I heard over the phone today, Barbara is continuing having pretty good days.  When the doctors came by this morning, they said she would likely have the dye test (essentially looking for any leak but also to get a look on how she is healing inside in general) on Monday.  I am sure this assumes she continues to do well and the drainage tube still in her does not show any significant change for the worse.  For the past couple days, she has had very little leakage through that tube which given the absence of the nose tube is critical.

Of course, she is still not getting enough sleep, but who does in a hospital.  Since she is now on the floor where it is mostly cancer patients, of whom some are there for several weeks at a time while they receive Chemo treatments, she is not being bugged quite as much, but still a lot more than you want.  Being on the floor is great given it is mostly private rooms while where we originally thought she would go was almost all semi-private rooms and she would have been miserable there, especially given how long she will likely have to stay there.  Turns out she has a very nice room to herself and it even has a bit of a view.   It is close to the nurses station, but when the door is closed, you don't really know it is there. She has a view of the mountains and the SeaDog stadium as well as her room overlooks the Heliport which can be interesting to watch.  Fortunately, it has not been very busy so far, so it is not a disturbance problem.

She is definitely continuing to get stronger and make general improvements.  For example, today she finally had a bowel movement. For anyone who has had any kind of major surgery, you know how big a deal it is for this to happen since the body tends to shut down from any surgery and can take some time to start working again.  In her case, with the surgery being in that area, it is even more critical, so we can now say a major milestone has been achieved.

I may not have much new tomorrow, but hopefully Monday will bring some news, hopefully good news.  Thanks again for everyones support.

Wayne