Ellie is continuing to do better by the hour.
She is a lot more awake and alert today than yesterday and we almost got a smile from her beofre lunch. Now she is pretty well sacked out and resting, which is just what she needs to be doing.
This afternoon she came off the epidural which numbed her from her chest to her belly button during and after sugery. This removed one whole set of tubes from her tangle of tubes and wires. Hopefully her foley catheter will come out later today to further pare down the bird's nest and get us closer to the way we were pre surgery.
It turns out that much of our pain issue on Monday night was because the epidural worked for the incision site, but not the site of her new ostomy. Epidurals are inexact and assumed to migrate over a certain band of her spine. The migration wasn't quite even and left her lower belly without numbing.
The anesthesiologist took this quite personally and was really bent out of shape about letting her feel any pain. He visited late yesterday to check on her and tell us how sorry he was. In the age of litigation all over the place whenever things don't go perfectly, it meant a lot to hear his concern and sincere apology.
We have caught up with the pain and the morphine has been well established . This has helped the pain and she is very comfortable as we keep up on the meds.
All is going as it should. The swelling of her ostomy (which looks a lot like a puffy rose) has gone down significantly and we are encouraged by her recovery.
Baby steps.
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