The Exciting Uneventful Night

Ice Packs on his shoulders seem to help Kevin

cope with the pain of trapped air in his chest cavity.

I know it seems like a contradiction in terms but it's exciting to have an uneventful night!  Last night Kevin took a dose of Dilaudid through his IV at around 12:45am and we both slept until about 5am when the vitals nurse came in and startled us both awake.  I think we both may have jumped when he walked in and "shouted" (or at least it sounded that way to us) "Good Morning!"  At that point, my sleep drowsy brain thought it had to be at least 7am.  Ha!  Anyway, after he left, Kevin took another IV dose of Dilaudid and we both went back to sleep again, this time until about 8:45am.  So it was an exciting night for us since Kevin was able to do nothing really but sleep.  AMEN!

This morning and early afternoon he's been doing wonderfully.  He had breakfast and lunch both of which are still a FULLS diet which consists of only liquids.  So breakfast was oatmeal, milk, hot chocolate and lunch was cream of tomato soup, a chocolate fortified shake, milk and a hot chocolate (They've finally figured out that neither of us drink coffee.)  He did have juice on his tray each time too but it just doesn't seem to sound very good to him.

Todays goals: 

• Walk 5x times 300 feet (which is a lap around the 4G floor) - He's already done 3+ of these.
• As strange as it sounds, pass more gas (He struggled this morning but after lunch his system seemed to begin to wake up)
• Keep his pain below a 6 out of 10.  He was started on vicodin yesterday but by evening finally decided it wasn't doing a darn thing so today he is trying OxyIR + tylenol and that seems to be working much better.  Since the Dilaudid is an IV drug, we had to come up with something oral that would work for Kevin and that he could take at home.
• Bowel movement - however Dr. Luchtefeld did say this morning that he may be able to go home even if he doesn't check this box in the next day or so.

Hoping for another exciting uneventful night,
Christine (& Kevin)

This is how we sleep together still.

(Note the smirk on my face,

obviously this picture is staged for memorabilia purposes!)