It Has Been ....

.... a very long day.
But a mostly good one.

I did not fall asleep until 4:00 or so this morning. This has to stop because I'm not sure how much longer I can handle it.

Fortunately, the surgeries were pushed back till noon, so I didn't have to be back to the hospital as early as was originally thought.

I'm now in G's room with V and N, her daughter. R is doing well and is on a pain pump so he's sleeping.
G, however, is not doing as well. He has been in a lot of pain and they can't seem to keep it under control. This is a huge children's hospital ... and yet after 5:00 p.m. there is one dr. in "pain services" to cover this entire hospital. And he's either very busy, or has fallen asleep somewhere.
It's beyond infuriating to watch G in so much pain and know that there's nothing we can do except wait for this guy to answer his stinking page.

G is the second of two patients to receive the type of pain management they've chosen. He received an epidural with narcotics added to it, and then some narcotics through an iv. The intention is that he would need less narcotic, thus would be less likely to suffer nausea. Unfortunately, it's not working. The nurse told us that this happened with the first patient, too, but that once they got the meds figured out, she did amazingly well the next day. G has been out of surgery and in pain since at least 6:30. It is now almost midnight. The pain dr came up here one time, several hours ago. They upped the epidural, which seemed to be wearing off, and then added a pain med to his iv. After about 15 mins G got some relief, though the
pain never went away. Now, for the last hour, the pain has been steadily increasing and this dr. is nowhere to be found. And G has not slept solidly since the surgery. He dozes for 10 - 15 minutes at the most and then is wide awake with the pain.
So much for "keeping n top of it".

V is sleeping in his room tonight, but N and I don't want to leave until things are more in control.
And, to add to all of that, G's kidney output is not what they'd like it to be. It's not enough "to keep the kidney working", which is a mighty scary thing to hear. So his dr. has ordered double the fluids (iv), plus replacing the amount that he does pass, every hour through the night.
It's just a wee bit stressful to watch the foley tube not putting out very much, plus watch his heart rate and bp climb because of the pain.

Everyone is exhausted.
Naturally.
The nurses have been wonderful, but they,too, are frustrated by all of this.

So please continue to pray, Peeps. And thank you for all of the prayers you've been sending up all day.

As for me, the moment that we followed G's bed out of pre-op and said goodbye at the surgery doors .... was more than I could handle. And I cried as I lagged behind, trying to hide the tears. But they would not stop and I couldn't hide them. V turned and saw them, then walked over to me, hugged me, and cried with me. I so did not want that to happen. This day was not about me, and I did not want to turn it that way. But it was hard.
So.
Very.
Hard.

But then it got better.
We spent the next four hours talking, laughing, updating various Facebooks, web sites and Twitter accounts. We went down to eat lunch once we knew that G's surgery was under way, but I don't find hospitals to be very hunger-inducing.

It is now 30 minutes after I started this post and the dr. has still not answered his page. The poor nurse is beyond overwhelmed. She has called his supervisor and the transplant surgeon because she doesn't know what else to do. I'd love to go hunt this man down, but I'd hate to be on the news tomorrow. I've already pushed enough envelopes around here today.
But even I know there's only so much you can demand.

And so we wait.

And pray.

Thanks, Peeps, for praying with us.