Mike is out of surgery, in pain but doing fine. Today was a brief setback. Another rough night and the two constants are pain and lack of sleep. It poured rain, thunder and lightning as we sat at the edge of the bed watching 2:00, then 3:00 a.m. sweep across the wall clock. Mike was moved to the surgery recovery floor. The room is in the newest wing of the hospital with granite sinks, a fridge, and a view of a court yard with a glowing green neon cross on top of the building next door. The cross is a remnant of the hospitals catholic beginnings in 1947 when nuns and priests roamed the halls. Mike is blessed with an athletic body that shows all of the signs of strength as they monitored his blood pressure, heart rate and oxygen levels this week. With all of these positive indicators the doctors thought it best to take him out of ICU and move him to this quieter place. Dr. West came in this morning to inform us that Mike would require the surgery we thought he avoided yesterday. In order for Mike’s lung to recover it needs to be fully inflated with no pneumothorax or collapsed areas. When the drain suction was increased the lung fully inflated but as Mike was weaned off the “machine” a portion of his lung starts to collapse again. Mike was wheeled down to the surgery center where the tube was placed in his upper chest with CT scan assistance to place the tube directly in the area that is surrounded by fluid and oxygen. As it turned out there is a significant amount of blood trapped behind the lung from the initial trauma. The doctor said this surgery was necessary because we could be chasing the fluctuations in his lung for weeks without the additional drainage. The procedure was very painful and Mike is sleeping off the pain meds. I feel this is the last low point because Mike has made great progress in the last 6 days. We are living by the results of serial X-Rays and as soon as the suction is removed and Mike’s lung demonstrates it is stable we will be on our way home. Realistically I think we are looking at some time next week provided there are no more setbacks. It was so cute, the nurses, technicians and doctors in the surgery center all said they are fans of the show. Mike was all doped up and as he was being wheeled back to the room he waved and said “Don’t forget to watch Airplane Repo tonight”. They all got a kick out of Mike, even with the pain he would get in a joke or two. Never thought we would be watching Airplane Rep from a hospital room!
Posted on: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 20:27:20 +0000
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