…And Bells on Her Toes

Road to Recovery

I think the drama of dealing with the Nursing staff is going to kill me.  Thursday was an especially difficult day emotionally for both Rose (Alex’s Mom) and myself.  We were on an emotional rollercoaster right from the start, full of highs and lows – elation that the first surgery provided pee right away; worry when he had to go back into surgery because it wasn’t enough pee; heartbreak when the Surgeon finally came out later to say how sorry he was and he hoped the kidney will work; and finally relief and exhaustion when he produced a lot of pee later that night.

I was a wreck on Thursday, I cried my eyes out for my husband – for what he was going through.  Sleep was a non-entity that night and my eyes were pretty puffy when I arrived on Friday.

Yesterday morning before I left I called down to the hospital to find out how he was.  After chasing down a nurse, she told me that he was great! Lots and lots of pee!  Excellent!

“So how’s his Potassium levels? I know they were high last night and had to give him Dialysis”. I asked.

“Potassium levels??  Um, who did you say you were calling about?” said the Nurse.

I repeated his name.  “Oh!” said the Nurse.  “I thought you were calling about Marc”.

“No…” I sighed.  “I’m calling about his son.”

That should have told me how my day was going to go.

Rose and I get down to the hospital and Alex wasn’t in his room.  My heart dropped.  His Nurse wasn’t at her desk (which is in his room).  We went to the Nursing station across from his room and asked where he was.  They directed us to his Nurse who was now at her desk.  She looked worried.  “He’s in Ultrasound”.  I asked how he was and she was really hesitant and told us we really needed to talk to the Doctor.  My heart sank.  She made it sound like something was really wrong.  The Doctor finally came over after Alex came back from Ultrasound and said “I think there has been some mis-communication, he’s doing great.  Look at all that pee!” I wanted to kiss the Doctor.  He said his creatinine levels were down from 1100 to 700 (not sure how they measure it), his Potassium was better and he had great blood flow to the Kidney.

After that I think I relaxed a little for the first time in days.

He looks like hell, very swollen and puffy – to be expected from the 20 lbs of fluids they pushed into his body.  His incision is not very big, we were expecting a larger cut, but this is only about 6-8 inches.  He drifted in and out of sleep yesterday and tried to talk but couldn’t really carry on a conversation.  He had a fever in the morning but that went away.  He must have been feeling better because he would roll his eyes at things I said.

apparently he had a good night, he was sleeping when I called, pee’s still good.  I’ll find out more when I get there.  I’ve sent him his friend’s best wishes and told him that everyone is thinking of them.

The kids are distracting me so I’ll post later.