My Hero

It’s amazing that, after being a nurse for almost 5 years, I never realized until this week how annoying it is to hear, “and how would you rate your pain between 0 and 10?” I mean, what does this even mean?? My 5 might be your 10. But I guess that’s the whole point - to establish what someone’s baseline is and go from there. Whatever. Dad is too cute. The first few days here they would ask this and it was always a 4 or a 5. No matter if it was after being out of bed and moving all around, or awakened mid snore....”hmm...it’s probably a 4 or a 5.” These past few days dad’s pain has been the biggest issue for him. He was moved from the ICU to a regular floor on Monday, and they took him off of his epidural on Tuesday. Almost immediately he started feeling intense pain over his entire incision site. The past couple nights he has had a lot of pain, even where it has been a 10/10, so for him and his standard 4 or 5, I knew that he was miserable. At this point the doctors are trying to wean him off of some of his IV pain meds but increase doses and frequencies of oral meds in order to transition him to going home. They suspect as long as he tolerates these changes, he can go home tomorrow morning. We don’t know yet if this will be the plan, depending on his pain control over the next 24 hours, but we are hopeful that the doctors are so happy with his progress. 

Things have been changed a little over the week, but he has been set up to eventually get on a Mon/Wed/Fri schedule for dialysis, and will be going to Lancaster General’s outpatient center until he is recovered from his surgery and cleared to be able to look more into the home dialysis option. Until then, he will have early morning dates with the dialysis center, but at least they found him one close to home. They also set him up with a dietitian consult yesterday, and she talked to both mom and dad about foods he CAN eat, amounts of sodium, potassium, and phosphorous that he is allowed to eat, how to read food labels, and also the big “no nos” for renal diets. It is all very overwhelming as it cuts out a lot of foods that he likes, but with some good recipe books and websites, we are getting prepared to help him transition with his homecoming. It might be tough, but so far he has been so good with things, reading labels, telling the nurses he can’t eat things that come on his tray...I am very impressed. The dietitian said a big “No.” when he asked her if he could have a piece of pizza with half the sauce and half the cheese. Her response was to make an english muffin pizza with low sodium sauce and cheese. Although he didn’t say this to her, while recalling the  story to me, his response was “well, that’s real nice, but I’m not a six year old. I want my pizza.” 

Dad has been amazing. I can honestly say that he is my hero. He has gone through so much already and has a long road ahead. I stayed the night again last night so I could be here with him for dialysis this morning. Of course dialysis got bumped to 11:45, but I’m still glad I stayed the night to help him with pain issues, asking the docs questions, and just to be here to support him and love him and fix his pillows and get him more cranberry juice. He is my high maintenance little patient, but he’s allowed to be. I can’t imagine what he is going through. And in the midst of it all, he still finds time to take care of me and our family. He keeps his sense of humor, which is so important, and as we found out from the docs yesterday that they may eventually look at doing preventative treatments for any lurking cancer cells, he has kept a positive outlook that he will do whatever he can to fight it from coming back. He is handling all of the pain issues and the changes and the interruptions in his sleep from the knock knock knock lights on!, and the “squeezie” things (SCD’s) he has to wear on his legs, and the needle sticks and everything all so well.  I still remember when I got my ears pierced in third grade, and as the lady held the gun up to my ear, I watched dad quickly turn his head, wipe the sweat off his face, and walk in the other direction. Now he has to deal with all of these needle pokes to himself, but is doing amazing prepping himself and getting himself through them even if he hates them. We hope to get more details from his doctors today about his discharge plan, and hopefully his pain is well controlled the rest of the day and night so he can get home and get some good rest, good food, and good love from his family and his grandson who can’t wait to see his Poppy. We don’t want to rush things, but we are eager to get our dad out of this place! 

Mike and I plan to stay here to help out with things the next few weeks, and in the meantime I am praying and searching for a job close by. This is looking harder than we thought, and we don’t know if we will be able to stay close, but we are trying. Keri and Angus are here until next week, and I am so glad they are here to help with everything, and that little Calvin brings all of us so much joy and so many smiles. I know I have no control over what job comes to me, and even if it is not on the east coast, even if we have to travel far away again, I know things will work out. They always do, even if it’s not how you expect them to work out. That’s about it for now. Another day is wrapping up, same old view of gray skies out of the same old hospital window, same cute dad sitting next to me hoping dinner arrives soon...mmm...speaking of dinner...I’d say my hunger level on a scale from 0-10 is, ooohh...about a 4 or 5. :D