Another day, a little bit better.

Now that Jennie has gotten out of the Hospital she is finally able to rest a bit more, which seems to be helping her recover a bit quicker. The only down side is that she takes her pain medicine every two hours, so she isn't sleeping long periods of time without having to wake up and take more medicine.

Last night she wanted to go out to eat, and we decided to go to the Old Spaghetti Factory just a few blocks from our hotel. The trip there was very painful, as the roads up here are very rough, but Jennie handled it very well and we came back and played Uno for a while.

Today we have just let her rest mostly, and I doubt we will venture out of the hotel in the next day or two to prepare for the trip home on Wednesday. Our plan is to go see Dr. Sutherland that morning and leave straight from there. I don't know if we will make it half way or not, but hopefully we can make it back to Owensboro by Thursday night.

Moving on Out . . .

For those of you that have been following the blog, Jennie did get discharged today as we expected. She is still very sore and we will be staying here until the middle of the week to have another appointment with Dr. Sutherland on Wednesday.

Not much else to report, hopefully Jennie will get some better rest here without being interrupted constantly by nurses, which should help a lot with her recovery.

Day 10

Dr. Sutherland just left, and it sounds like Jennie will be getting out tomorrow barring any major setbacks!!

Jennie is still in a lot of pain, and today they have switched her totally to oral meds. They are a larger dose than she was on prior to entering the hospital last week, but still less than they were when she left the Hospital after her surgery in June. Hopefully they will re-evaluate her levels and bump them up some so she can be more comfortable.

Dr. Sutherland also talked briefly about the pain she is still experiencing after eating, and suggested a test called a hidoscan we should have run to determine exactly what the source of pain is. He gave us the option of doing the test early next week up here or doing it once we get back to KY, and we chose the latter.

Please continue to pray, Jennie still has a long way to recover after she gets out of the Hospital tomorrow!

Days 8 and 9

I am sorry I neglected to post yesterday, but I had a terrible migraine and went to bed very early. On the flip side, that meant that I woke up early today and managed to beat the doctors in for once.

Jennie had a very bad day yesterday, they tried to switch her to her oral pain meds, with the PCA still available for breakthrough. Unfortunately, the orders were written incorrectly and she went without pain meds for about an hour. Needless to say, it took quite a while to get her pain back under control, and from about 10 yesterday morning until almost 3 she was in severe pain. They did finally get the pain under control, but it took a long time and she was worn out afterwords.

Today Jennie is in a lot less pain and has just been sleeping so far this morning. The doctors came in about 7:30. Her incision looks good, and they will be giving her antibiotics until she is able to be released, hopefully on Saturday!!

Thats right, they said tentatively Saturday she could be released, and we would set up an appointment with Dr. Sutherland for early next week. Hopefully this time table will stick, I know Jennie is looking forward to being out of here. Keep praying that Jennie will recover from the surgery quickly, and that this surgery did fix the pain she has been having the last few months.

Day 7

So there isn't much progress to report today. Jennie's diet did not change, and she is hurting some today, possibly from the incision being opened yesterday.

She is still making small progress and is still moving around, but her pain level going up some today has us slightly worried. Unfortunately the Doctors came in very early today, so we were unable to get their take on it.

I am hoping to get over there earlier tomorrow morning, and hopefully I will be able to catch the doctors to get a better feel for what they are thinking. Until then, keep Jennie in your prayers!

Day 6

Again today Jennie is doing well. They started her on clear liquids today, so Jennie has been drinking apple juice all day. We found a juice last time, Nantucket Nectars, that has the most incredible apple juice. The only other thing she can have that she will eat is red jello, but she doesn't like the generic kind they have at the hospital, so we had to bring some over for her this afternoon.

The doctors did feel that her incision needed to drain, so today they opened it up a little at the bottom. They did all this without giving her any additional pain meds, and I could tell it hurt quite a bit. Not only did they cut the wound back open, but then they also pulled it apart a little in order to get as much fluid as possible out. That being said, Jennie's pain was much more this afternoon than it was yesterday, but her stomach was beginning to swell and become red, so it definitely needed to drain. I only hope that nothing further will need to be done at the incision site and that it can heal over the next few days.

Jennie was also somewhat more tired today, so I tried to let her sleep a lot of the time I was there. It seems that she is able to sleep better during the day while we are there because the nurses leave her alone more than they do overnight.

The draining is an issue we have known about for a day or two, and was even speculated about right after the surgery, so it was expected and shouldn't be a major setback in her recovery. If they didn't allow it to drain there was the risk it could become infected, and her pain seemed higher today due to the swelling, so I think it should actually make her feel better pretty quickly.

We ask for your continued prayers, the doctors are talking about taking her off of the TPN and allowing her to try soft solids tomorrow, which will really begin to tell us if her colon has healed enough yet for her to leave the hospital in a few days.

Day 5

Again today Jennie seems to be doing pretty well. She didn't get much sleep last night, so she has slept quite a bit, but her pain seems to be a little better.

The doctors said they will try her on clear liquids tomorrow, which will be a major step towards her getting out of here. They are hoping that she will be out of here before the weekend, which we would be very happy with.

While the doctors were in they did mark a few places along her incision that were red and puffy. The doctors don't seem to think this is an infection at this point, but they wanted to mark it so they know to monitor it over the next few days.

Jennie has already been on 2 walks today down the hall and back, and also sat in the reclining chair for an few hours. Each day she seems to be doing more and more, and her progress is much quicker than it was after the last surgery.