Postsurgery, the rest of day 5, day 6 and day 7

TL;DR: Lots of ups and downs the past few days. Currently trending up.

Full story:

It has been a real roller coaster over here for the past three days.

After my last post, Dr. Goddard came up to see Vic (Tuesday morning). She was very happy with his progress and said it was time to cap his trach tube, meaning he would be breathing on his own instead of through the tube—and he would be able to speak (even though he was not allowed to speak). HUGE milestone. She said that if everything kept progressing as it had been, then on Wednesday they would remove the vacuum dressing on his wrist, on Thursday they would remove the drains on his arm and neck, and he could go home by the "end of the week." (She didn't elaborate on whether "end of the week" meant Friday or sometime over the weekend, but in talking to some other staff, it sounded like Monday would be more likely than any other time.) She even said she was planning to take the trach tube out before he went home, which would be a miracle. Dr. Song said Vic might have that thing for weeks or months. You wouldn't think anything could top that but then this happened:

Rocky the therapy dog — Vic said it was the best part of his day.

On Wednesday, so many wonderful things happened! First, the ENT team took off the vacuum dressing—which was attached to a machine that we had to lug around wherever Vic went—and the drain in his arm. For the first time since surgery day, Vic was not attached to anything. The freedom was exhilarating.

Next, Vic graduated from yellow socks to brown socks.

Brown socks mean that you can walk around the hospital without a hospital staff member, and no one will stop you and give you a ticket. (I'm pretty sure that's what they said.) More freedom!

And yet ... Vic was tired that day. He no longer had a spring in his step—it had more of a dog-days-of-summer feel to it. Around 4 p.m., he was getting a bed bath, and CNA Erin took his temperature. It was a little high—in the 99s. She finished the bath and his temperature was a little lower, but a little while later, Nurse Rachel came in to take his temperature, and it was in the 102s. His blood pressure was even worse. From time to time in the ICU, it had climbed as high as 188 over whatever (it was the 188 that was alarming, so I didn't pay attention to the lower number). I mentioned this to Rachel, and she said, "Uh, yeah, this is beyond that." That's when the medical staff went into "medical staff mode." Rachel started making phone calls and got Dr. Talmege (I think of him as Dr. Goddard's right-hand man—he's at nearly all the rounds), who was in surgery. He scrubbed out and came right upstairs. Rachel took 70 gazillion vials of blood to do cultures and blood tests and whatnot to find out what was wrong. She gave him some medication to lower his blood pressure and hung some fluids and a broad spectrum antibiotic. She stayed an hour past her shift time to make sure nothing fell off the radar. A fellow came in to take a chest X-ray. They took a urine sample. The theory was that he had contracted an infection.

It was all pretty scary, and Vic kind of thought he was circling the drain. But, as is often the case with Vic, he wasn't. The fluids helped a lot, and his blood pressure and temperature both came down. He felt pretty crappy all night, but it definitely wasn't as crappy as before.

The ENTs came up for morning rounds and said whatever was going on wasn't in the blood and was probably in the lungs. The respiratory therapist said she'd heard pneumonia was a likely suspect, so they were treating that. I still haven't heard a formal diagnosis, but I'll ask the ENTs in the morning.

Around 9:30 a.m., Vic woke up and had to go to the bathroom. So I went over and disconnected him from his IV and leg pumper thingies (it's a medical term—look it up), and he got up. BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! Oops. They turned on his bed alarm. The charge nurse came running—apparently they've had a few falls lately and are really trying to avoid it. What I didn't realize was that they had "downgraded" him to need assistance again because he was connected to the IV and such. The morning was marked by miscommunication and frustration between me and the nursing staff. I'll spare you the gory details, but let's say I was just shy of Shirley MacLaine in Terms of Endearment, and it wasn't my finest moment. 😐

Fortunately, by the afternoon, Vic was feeling much better than yesterday, and he kept getting better all day. He took four walks, all fairly springy. He sat in the chair twice (more tiring than you might think) and sat up in bed for awhile. As is often the case when I am doing the blog, he is sleeping soundly.

I had thought all of this would really delay his discharge, but the night nurse said they were still planning on removing the trach tube Friday or Saturday, so we're still moving forward!

We've had quite the ride the past few days. Hoping the next few days will be a bit brighter!