Day 12: In Pain and LaLaLand

Before I begin this next episode I want to thank so many of you for your concern and love for Louise and for me. Your comments, emails, phone calls, etc. have been so appreciated over all of these days. Most of them have been read to Louise also. I am amazed at how many people that I had no idea were following this, have surfaced in comments and emails. When Louise becomes Louise again, she will want to write each of you a thank you note and put each of your well wishes in a scrapbook. That is how she is!

But today, Louise was not with us very much. She was in the dream world and she kept waking up to doctors and nurses and telling them strange things about her dreams. One poor pain doctor was a little shocked when she told him that he probably would never drive with her again because she was so tipsy. I know you have never heard this about Louise before, but she is right now high on drugs.

Last night she came out of surgery and they had not turned on the epidural medicine and they had not given her pain killers. That half hour of pain for her was the worst. She had me put on soothing music and I caressed her arms and hands until she finally fell into deep sleep. She said she slept pretty well last night. This morning, though, she was in a lot of pain for most of the morning. They really tried to keep her out of pain but not drug her up too much because they could see how loopy she was. Finally about 2 pm the pain subsided somewhat and her heart stopped racing. I think she finally was relaxing. But she still couldn't ever stop from going to sleep. It was almost scary. She kept asking what day it was and whether it was day or night. She had trouble talking clearly and eating by herself. I'm sure it was the drugs. The one drug they gave her that knocked her out was called fentanyl which is supposed to be 4 times stronger than morphine.

Even with her being so drugged, they still made her get out of bed and sit in the chair. She sat in the chair for close to 3 hours. The surgeon did not want her to just lay in her bed all day. He worried about lung infections. She did develop a fever of about 101.5. The surgeon felt that it was probably due to last night's surgery where they scrape her chest and then throw inflammatory medicine on it to make it sticky. Talk about burning. It hurts to even think about.

Even though it was one of Louise's toughest days, there was some good news. The surgery last night accomplished everything that it was supposed to. This morning's x-ray revealed that the leak in her lung was gone and the lung had inflated completely and everything looked very positive. the surgeon even thought that she might get the left tube out tomorrow and maybe the right tubes out as early as Sunday. The epidural would come out at that time too. She will remain in ICu at least one, maybe two more days. So that seems to be the story for today. thanks again for your concern for her. We all appreciate it so much. She is worth it!!

Spence