One Week Post-Op

Today marks one week from Nate's surgery. It's been a week of ups and downs. Nate began his recovery well and felt like he could leave the hospital within a few days. He had lots of visitors over the weekend, which was a really nice way to pass the time. Our kids came on Saturday to watch a football game on T.V.  Even though they are apprehensive about being in the hospital and seeing Nate in this condition, they did well and cheered up their Daddy!

His pain has been well controlled with an epidural. They finally removed it on Monday and started him on oral pain meds. The downside to that is that they are given every three hours so he doesn't get any real sleep. True to his nature, he doesn't complain. The nurses like him and everyone seems cheerful when they come in his room.

Nate had to have the dreaded Naso Gastric (NG) tube in until Thursday night. That thing makes him crazy! I think he was having flashbacks of the nine days he had it in Massachusetts. He was so happy to get that thing out!

He is a man of mystery, as we learned back in Massachusetts. After surgery, his white blood cell count (WBC) jumped up to 22, then steadily decreased all the way to 14 on Monday. He had steady vital signs (except his crazy low blood pressures, which probably resulted from the epidural) until about 6:00 every night when he would start to get a fever. It would last into the early morning hours and break, all while his WBC count kept going down. They finally started him on an antibiotic on Saturday, just in case. Monday they started him on a heavy hitting antibiotic and decided that if he had one more night of fevers, they would order a CT scan for Tuesday morning. You can guess what happened...no fever. No scan. However, his WBC count went back up to 16.5. Nice. I've decided that Nate just likes to keep us guessing.

Last night during rounds, they told Nate that they would order the CT today to check for an abscess or a leak in his newly reconnected colon. Insert freak out by Natalie here. I'll bet you can tell what happened next...WBC count back down to 14.5, so no CT scan. I can't decide if I'd rather just have Nate get the scan or not! You would think that after the summer we had, with repeated rides on the roller coaster of doom, that we would be as cool as cats by now. Not so. Of course I am only speaking for myself as Nate is always as cool as a cat (unless he has the dreaded NG tube).

Yesterday as they were examining the incision, they decided it needed to be drained so they punctured it with a Q-tip and removed a staple so all the fluid could escape. And escape it did! Does! Is! Just keeps draining and draining. The fluid looks good, and hopefully will stay that way. 

So here we are in the hospital for at least another day. Nate's bowels aren't as "active" as they need to be, and our doctor wants to see what will happen tonight with his temp, his labs, and his bowel function. The last thing I want is to take Nate home and have him decline. It's a very helpless and scary feeling! The kids can't wait to have him home, and we all miss him being there. Praying that all goes well tonight and that everything heals and mends and works the way it should. He is one tough guy, but I don't want to see him suffer any more.

Thanks for all of the calls and texts. I'm sorry that I haven't updated here since the surgery, I've been a little frenzied and probably a little superstitious too. Silly me. We appreciate all the love and kindness coming our way! Here's to a "well functioning" night! Go Nate!