Post Op Day 5

I can't believe we are already five days post op.  All the days seem to blur into one another.  The time has flown yet last Thursday seems like a hundred years ago.  Trent it doing well.  They removed his epidural today and he is now on only oral pain medicine, with the option of IV dilaudid if he needs it.  So far, he has needed it. 

Yesterday my mom brought the kids down to see Trent.  Jarom and Mallory had been coughing so we masked them up and only let them stay for a minute.  Luckily the ICU has had only two patients in it for the last two days so it was pretty quiet and not a lot for the kids to stare at while they were here.  

Zach, Trent, and Jarom

Joellynn and Trent

Mallory and Trent

Me, Jonathan, Mallory, and Trent

 Jonathan told me to "hurry and get Dad better to bring him out of the hospital"  We would love that!  However, Trent is not going anywhere until Saturday at the earliest.

This morning I got up and slipped to the shower before Trent woke up.  While I was gone he woke up and had an episode of "air hunger".  He was gasping for breath and attracted a whole lot of attention from a whole mess of people and I missed it all.  Shortly after that he was able to get up and walk almost all the way down the hall before coming back.  He had to take a short break in the chair that I was pushing behind him.  He is doing better though, each day he is able to go a little further.  He really needs to pace himself and not hurry too quickly.  He has been a little frustrated today that he is basically starting over.  Just one week ago he was building a deck and now he can hardly walk a few steps without being extremely winded.  It's only a matter of time though. 

This is "Evan from Heaven" as we have been calling him.  He is the massage therapist that Dr. Carr ordered for Trent.  He came yesterday and worked on his thigh muscle that was so sore from laying on it for 10 hours during surgery.  Trent was in heaven!-hence the nickname for Evan-just works out nicely that it rhymes too.   He felt immediate relief so we made sure Evan is going to come back each day until we leave.  Today he worked on the thigh again and on Trent's left shoulder.  What a blessing he has been for Trent!  It makes a world of difference for him. 

While Evan was massaging, Dave, the respiratory therapist came in to work on his breathing.  The chest cavity on the left side is filling up with fluid, which we want it to do.  But in doing so it has to push out the air that was there before.  If the cavity fills too quickly it can trap the air and cause a real problem.  Dr. Carr would then have to stick a needle in Trent's chest and release the air.  We really don't want that to happen because there is always a risk of infection when you put anything inside the body.  We want the fluid to rise slowly enough that the air has time to be reabsorbed by the body.  Respiratory therapy has been coming several times today to work his right lung and get it expanding to force the air of the left chest.

In between all of the interruptions he has been able to get some rest today.  He will be in the ICU a few more days then he will "step down".  It doesn't matter much, it has been so quiet and peaceful here.  He is not hooked up to anything but monitors so the beeping is greatly reduced. He can actually take some good naps and he is able to sleep at night for about four hours at a time.  There have only been two patients here for the past two days so Trent is getting all the attention he needs and maybe a little more than we wants. 

(sorry about the half sentence that was posted yesterday...the internet connection in our room leaves much to be desired and I never know when it is going to cut me off.  I am just glad it didn't delete everything I had already done!)