Tuesday, October 28, 2008

A Blonde Moment to Treasure

Pete's nurse is the sweetest lady. I suspect from her accent and demeanor that she's from the Golden Triangle (Beaumont Orange Port Arthur) and she takes a very active interest in Pete's care. She is definitely one of the nurses I will remember with happiness.

But yesterday. . .

Pete has been complaining of abdominal pain and nausea off and on for a while now. The pain itself has been more pronounced over the last several days and he has complained of pain around one of the incisions.

So yesterday, I go up to the hospital and Pete's acting like he's feeling really crappy. One of the nurses comes in and tells me he's been feeling bad and that I should talke to Gerri about what's happened. I can tell it's nothing horrible, so I head out to talk to her and she says they have done a bunch of blood and other tests and were waiting on results. She said that she got him into bed earlier and was feeling around where he said it hurt. To her shock, she feels this huge knot in the area he's complaining about. It's large and round and well defined and so, she gives him the vicodin she's got on order and hurredly calls the doctor to report this development. About this point in her story, I pipe up with, "that's his skull" and she said, "I know that now, Dr. Shah told me". All the blood work and the x-ray came back perfectly normal, so they're treating the pain.

Fast forward to today, I hit the hospital at lunchtime and Pete's not in his room. I'm confused, but within a few minutes, he's located in the bathroom, where he's complaining of severe nausea and says he really wishes he could just throw up. He gets back into bed and Dr. Shah comes in and starts asking questions and talking to me about this situation (the pain, not the nurse). She starts feeling around and it seems the bone flap has migrated a bunch is might just be rubbing against his pelvic bones. Does that not sound like it would hurt like hell? So, she's calling Dr. Zhang about it. She also wants to rule out any sort of heart problem and will probably run cardiac enzymes tomorrow because of the frequency with which people have heart attacks with few classic symptoms, one of which is nausea. I told him he is NOT allowed a heart attack I draw the line there. We'll see with the neurosurgeon has to say when we have family rounds tomorrow.

At midnight it's 17 days until he's scheduled to come home. Yahoo!

3 comments:

Kitty said...

Prayers! No more health problems!!

Marie said...

Holy schnikies!!! NO HEART ATTACKS PETE!!!! Kristy - you are so brave! Pete is one lucky guy to have you taking such good care of him, keeping those nurses in line and those docs. Keep up the good work!!! Love and Hugs!

Anonymous said...

So many prayers being sent to Pete and you!

Much love!