The Third Law of Physics

Until about a week ago the daily question was, "Did you pass gas?" An awakening GI tract was our hope. Now we want a quiet GI tract to let the little hole (wherever it is) close up. Yesterday's CT scan didn't reveal anything new particularly the location of little fistula. Word is that Faina could be discharged with this unresolved and a possible third surgery some time down the road.

It was a day of less than optimal blood levels, high sugar (so get insulin shots), high white blood cells (must be fighting an infection, so take Zosyn), and low hemoglobin (keeping an eye on that).

What Faina was not passing was water, so a catheter was put in. This made her uncomfortable all day, but it was doing it's job. The nurses checked the Foley in late afternoon and found it was not in the bladder any more, more like the ureter, and began preparing to put in another catheter, but decided not to, calculating the risk of infection vs. the probability of her UT strightening itself out.

Message from the Department of You Have to Keep an Eye out for these Guys: Faina met with a doctor from the pain management team. She had her goal, a decent night's sleep, he had his questions to figure out the proper course. Everything copacetic, so far. A decision was agreed on, leave the morphine base level as is, lower the demand frequency and dosage, and take Benadryl before going to sleep. It all sounded reasonable, but then nurse Kerry, who would get Florence Nightingale's seal of approval and has helped Faina through some rough days, appears with a cartridge of Fentanyl, the pain killer we had just told the doctor had been the first pain killer prescribed (weeks ago) and was ineffective. Dr. Pain Management just got confused, but the surgical team got that matter straightened out fast.

There was some buzz of sending Faina home with home health care. One of the challenges will be nutrition, but she would continue, for now, to drink it in intravenously. This post-gastrectomy period (today marks three-weeks) has become an exercize in the third law of physics, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.