Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Allowed to drink again
Shane was really tired and slept a lot today. His physical therapist came by in the morning and Shane set a new record for walking. Using the walker, he was able to make it out of his room and down the hall a bit. He also got his nasal-gastric tube and urinary catheter out today. Hooray! Shane's surgeon came to visit twice and noted that Shane is having increasing difficulty breathing. They said Shane does not have fluid in the lungs (according to his previous x-rays), but it looks like he does have fluid around the lungs, which is called pleural effusion. This could be the result of having general anesthesia twice in eight days. If that continues, they will do some diagnostic tests and they may have a thoracic surgeon come and drain some of the fluid out in a fairly low risk procedure that could give Shane a lot of relief. We also visited with Shane's ostomy nurse who said Shane's ostomy looks like a rose. She gave us a lesson on ostomy care and told us some eyebrow-raising stories about the things she's seen pop out of people's ostomies, like an entire intact green bean! She said everyone should chew their food more. The most exciting development is that after three and half days of eating and drinking nothing other than ice chips, Shane was finally permitted to start a liquid diet. His first request was iced tea. Yummmm... caffeine!
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This is great news - enjoy your sweet tea, Shane!
ReplyDeleteI was at home sick today and slept a lot, too. So i'm thinking of you and sending lots of good thoughts! I called and left a message on Shane's cell - call if you're bored!
ReplyDeleteGet well soon!
Do they even know how to make iced tea in New York???
ReplyDeleteHugs and love, and lotsa healing thoughts!
John
The green bean business cracks me up. Particularly since I'm someone who is TERRIBLE about swallowing my food whole. All hail chewing before swallowing!
ReplyDelete:-)
Buddy they know how to make iced tea in Bethesda, Maryland its called honest tea. Thanks for swell chicken broth from Russ and Daughters. Genie, our ileostomy nurse told us about some projectile green beans while she was changing a bag.
ReplyDeleteToday is really the first day I've felt up to making brief call, either felt bad or sounded like shit. Talk soon
ReplyDeleteGreat to hear your voice today, Shane. I hope you had a good walk today, and maybe solid food tomorrow?
ReplyDeleteLove,
John
When I saw this post title I was about to hotfoot it over there with a cold 6-pack, but read on and realized it's not quite time yet. Those beers are on ice, and will wait until it's time to celebrate. Looking forward to that day soon! Love to you and Alex.
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