Kris, Dave and the Lumps: Recovery from Surgery

Sorry for not posting more often, it's been busy.

Sunday 12-Oct-2008
Kris is still in the hospital recovering. She's not sleeping very well as they are keeping her full of fluids, which require trips to the restroom, which takes a bit of a production, and increases her pain. So, she was on a cycle of taking her drugs, sleeping for a bit, waking up, going to the bathroom, getting in bed, taking drugs. Roughly a one hour cycle. Despite this, when we visited her, she was in good spirits though she'd doze in an out on occasion while we were there.

We watched the second season of 'How I Met Your Mother' to pass the time.

Monday, 13-Oct-2008
On the way to the hospital, I checked and the third season of 'How I Met Your Mother' was out, so, I got it.

Slept better, but, same basic cycle. Kris is more mobile than she was which I take as a good sign. Dr. Kuisle said that she's not going home yet. Worst part is trying to get her on stable pain medications as there seem to be too many plans and no one knows which one anyone is supposed to be following!

Tuesday, 14-Oct-2008
During the night the nurse noticed that her IV had slipped out of her vein so Kris had a goodly bit of edema and really wasn't getting her pain medications. They accessed her port and her pain medications were administered that way... oddly, she slept a lot better this way!

When I got there, she was off of the PCA (Patient Controlled something, means she hits a button, and pain meds go into her). We started watching HIMYM and Dr. Kuisly showed up to give us our walking papers and a clear cut plan on how to use the pain medications. He also had us set an appointment to see him in his office Wednesday.

Leaving and getting home were fairly uneventful. We were going to just sleep downstairs in the lazy-boy chair but, Kris decided she wanted to sleep upstairs.

Wednesday, 15-Oct-2008
Dr. Kuisle changed her bandages and they removed approximately half of her staples. The nurse suggested wearing a soft cotton shirt under the binding they have wrapped about her abdomen to help make things more comfortable. They also removed one of the 4 drains (two in the breast area, two in the abdomen) and I'm to empty and measure them twice a day. We are also allowed to shower now, but, we have to put bacitracin (neosporin to you and me) around the drain sites after bathing. The nurse gave us supplies, including a soft, sports like, bra that should be more comfortable.

The Dr. gave us the news about the biopsy of the tissue removed from Kris left breast. There were indeed traces of the cancer, some signs of it in the lymphatic system, but, no signs that the lymphatic system itself was infected (GOOD NEWS!), better, the margins are clear (the margins are the areas at the edge of where the tissue was removed) which means that they removed everything they know about!

Thursday, 16-Oct-2008
Everything is pretty much uneventful. Kris is both more and less comfortable... which is part of the healing process, imho. Basically, things that were not bothering her before, are bothering her now. Which I take to mean that her surgery sites are 'waking up' so she is able to feel more and in some cases she's feeling things that aren't the same and are thus less comfortable. :)

More to come...