Latest Update
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Tagged brad : Latest
Brad had severe pain in the recovery room. It wasn't unexpected, but it was still hard to take. We weren't allowed in there, but he said he was just shaking all over. I'm sure it's hard for the anesthesiologist to figure out the right level of drugs for him and it seems like he didn't get quite enough pain medicine and the pain got away for a bit.
When he rolled through on the gurney, his face looked horrible and reflected his pain. The nurse rolling him had to warn him before she rolled over each bump in the hall and he kinda gritted his teeth to get over the bump. She didn't let us come back immediately. By the time we got back, they had bumped up the morphine.
The morphine made his face (especially his nose) itch like crazy! He was just going nuts over it. Again, this was expected, but hard to watch. When they gave him medicine to ty to sooth the itching, it did all kind of other weird things to him. He had hot flashes like crazy! We ended up with fans and blankets, alternating back and forth based on how he felt at the moment.
Finally at this point, he seems to be stabilized and the pain is manageable. Every hour, he has to suck on a breathing apparatus 10 times to help expand his lungs, then try to cough. All this is to get his lungs back to normal. They also have to sit him up in bed, which is painful. He's had a catheter and IV since this morning and nothing to eat all day. When I told him the catheter was causing the pain, he said "What? Captain Dave?" He finally got a sip of Sprite at 5:30 or so.
We're in the pediatric ICU on the fifth floor, which means we'll be able to stay with him through the night. Also, they assigned us an empty regular room where we can go. I guess that's to allow both parents up here and also because there's currently no waiting room.
Dr. Koury does *not* want visitors up here in ICU, but the nurse is kinda lenient. That morphine acts like truth serum on Brad. Dr. Koury popped in and surprised us when Brad's cousin Laura was in the room with us. You could tell by his face that he was teed off, but Brad pipes up with "yeah, my friend Jamie is coming by later." He told us it was okay since we were being quiet and not having a party, but the nurse (Elaine) said he would get on her case later about it.
As far as cosmetics go, his chest looks wonderful. It's strange how it's immediately normal. Dr. Koury says it's like braces - you move the bones, leave the brace/rod in, and when you take it out, they stay in place. The big difference is *braces don't move your teeth in one hour*. That's the source of the pain...taking a 14.5 year old chest and moving things around, plus supporting the chest with the rib cage and a bar tied into muscle and cartilage.
I'll post more from time to time, not really regularly tomorrow. It takes Rhonda, two nurses, and me to keep him comfortable right now. We hope to move to a regular room tomorrow, but that depends on how his breathing goes. Right now, he's taking 12-17 breathes per minute, which is in the low normal range. As long as he progresses, I think we might move. However, right now he's the only one in ICU, so I don't know why we want to move!
Thanks for your calls and concerns. Work people - please leave voice mails if you need a response Thursday as emails take some setup time and I have to leave the room.