Sou Getting an Echo"Jheri, wake up," said Sou as the nurse shot his fentanyl down his PICC line. It was 15 minutes before 7am. The surgeon was on her way to change the packing in Sou's wound. I thought this time might be better being that the nurse was giving him his pain meds a little beforehand. When the group of people came into the room with the surgeon, I sat out of bed and stood next to Sou. The surgeon asked if Sou already received his medications. The nurse said yes. There were two guys who held up Sou's legs.
"Okay, big deep breath," said the surgeon. She began pulling out the gauze packed into Sou's wound. He yelled in pain. This went on a couple times more. One thing I liked about the surgeon was she was quick. When the nurses changed the dressings two days ago, they took their time. They weren't sure about this, uncertain about that. After all the gauze was out, they let Sou have a breather. The nurse also gave Sou more fentanyl. It turns out, she only gave Sou 75 beforehand. Two days ago, Sou had 300. Because it usually takes 10-15 minutes to take effect on Sou, it was pointless now. Then the surgeon began to pack in the fluff roll, damp with normal saline. His yelling continued for another 20 seconds. When she was done, they put some padding down to absorb the drainage. Before she left, she told us that the first week is the hardest and that it would take at least 4 weeks to heal. When the surgeon and her crowd left the room, the nurse checked Sou's vitals. His O2sat was 86%.
"Big deep breaths Sou," I told him. I saw it go to 94%. The nurse put on Sou's oxygen and Sou fell asleep. Now all the medications were kicking in. His nurse held off on checking his vital signs to let him sleep.
At 10a.m. they came to his room to do an echocardiogram. It's like an ultrasound of your heart. The procedure lasted almost an hour. She kept zooming in and looking at different spots. She turned up the volume on his heart beats. Sou began nodding his head like it was music. Occasionally you would hear a wierd noise that was inconsistent with the beats. She kept looking at one are for a while. After she was gone, Sou slept even more. A little after that Jaime, his regular doc, came in to listen to his lungs. She also let him sleep. She told me that they decided to skip a couple days of the chemo because they thought he might be having some side effects in his heart. Skipping a few days shouldn't bother his chemo treatment entirely. At 11:30a.m. a couple of pain doctors came in to talk to Sou about the dressing change that happened earlier. He said that there was no way to be entirely pain free. Their objective was to make the pain tolerable. They decided that because he's been getting 300 of fentanyl and still experiencing a great deal of pain, he adjusted the time schedule and amount he would be getting. He explained to his nurse that he wanted Sou to have 75 every five minutes, starting 20 minutes before the procedure (a total of 300).
"So, four 75's," he told her. I saw the nurse write down "475".
"No he means 75 times four," I told her. He looked at me and said, "Thank you." If the pain was still unbearable, he said that he could have two more doses of 75. The doc expressed that timing was key and the surgeons should not touch Sou until he's had his 4 doses of 75.
Sou went back to sleep until after 2pm. We watched some tv and I read my textbooks. A little bit before 6pm, they decided to start giving Sou his fentanyl. This time the nurse would do the dressing change. She said the surgeons will only show up in the morning. She gave Sou a dose of 75 every 5 minutes until she had given a total of 4 doses. Sou was more relaxed. I guess the surgeons didn't communicate to her about how deep Sou's wound was. She thought it was a couple of gauzes. She had Sou lie on his stomach and began to pull out the gauze. As more and more of the gauze came out, she began to see how deep his wound was.
"Ahh my gawsh! The surgeon did not tell me it was like that! I asked if I needed to use a q-tip. They said to use my fingers! I'm not gonna stick my finger all the way in there," she said. But she did stick her fingers into the wound. She was a lot gentler than the surgeon. I saw her lightly pack the wound. Sou was much more calmer this time around. I wasn't sure if it was because she didn't pack enough gauze in or because of the medication timing. Who knows. We'll find out when the surgeon returns tomorrow morning.
ohh my god, Sou's wound is that deep? Well, when I had to treat my dad, we used the long cotton swabs that was for medical use. We had many packs of them, boxes of gauze, a box latex gloves, and some medicated hydrogen-peroxide/water mixture that the hospital gave my dad.
ReplyDeleteI remembered that each time he takes a clean shower and watch for his wound b/c sometimes it would bleed in the tub (so we had him to clean after himself after his shower for a few weeks). Man, I had to be really gentle pulling it out and putting it in. I told him if he was ready for each pull/tuck for like every 20 - 30 secs at a time, and trying to moisture the gauze a little to easily tuck/pack it. At first, it took about 10 - 20 min, but after his wound did not hurt much, we did it under 5 min and sometime without or little pain and without pain meds. Hopefully, that helps.