2nd morning post-op

First of all my apologies for not posting yesterday.  I simply needed a break.  It was a very quiet day actually - Muriel slept most of it, waking up for a few minutes at a time to get a drink, cough up some phlegm, or express her disdain at having so many things tieing her to the bed, again.

 This morning not much has changed.  No pumps off yet, no tubes gone yet.  Her latest xray, as of early this morning, shows her left lung a little worse than yesterday.  Some fluid accumulation (which I don't quite understand, given the chest tube is there), and the lung overall is hazy.  Left side chest tube output is still pretty high - over 200ml yesterday.  Other than noting it the staff didn't seem overly concerned.  Dr. Sajan made a point to tell me that they don't expect the drainage to stop for another few days, and not to worry.

She was awake when I arrived just after 8AM, and coughing.  She has had this cough since surgery - seems she can't quite get rid of some congestion in her upper airways.  The coughing clearly hurts her, and is painful to watch.  After sleeping she tends to cough for a few minutes and is then better, and is ready to eat or drink something.  Mainly clear liquids so far, though I did manage to get some rice and HEAVILY salted mashed potatoes (yup - sodium levels are starting to freefall again) into her, and some yogurt this morning.

She is still sedated round the clock.  Drugs this time 'round are phenobarbitol and loritab (basically tylenol with codine).  She isn't quite as out of it as she was with the atavan, but she is certainly sleeping a lot.

Other than the congestion, the sodium levels, and the darn chest tube drainage she looks very good, according to the staff.  Its still pretty early after surgery, and I think it is hard to keep that in mind, given that we have been here nearing three weeks.  I wouldn't have expected her to be packed and ready to go two days after her last surgery, so I have to keep reminding myself that she needs a bit of time to recover.  Mentally this is really so hard - I'm drained.

She is supposed to get her foley catheter out today, so lets hope this is the start of seeing lots of things disappear, again.  I'll take a pic when it happens and post later today.