The surgeons came in yesterday evening and removed the wound vac and closed up Mikie's incision.  It was quite a sight.  They did it right in the room so I was able to watch and even took a couple of pictures.  I won't share them right now but may post links to them later.  And then maybe I better not, I wouldn't want these floating around the internet as gross pictures of the week.  I don't think Mikie is in as much pain as he was before and the docs say this will speed up the healing process.  They said the wound really looked good that it was coming along nicely.

It's almost 9 PM and I just got through shaving him, and he has moments where he is resting well and moments of agitation.  I think its time for pain reliever and the nurse is checking.  They are giving him Ativan and Dialantin for seizures but I don't think he has had ANY for days now.  I think we are seeing slight improvement every day now.  I even saw his heart rate come down almost to 100 earlier, which is much better than the 120-130 range it has been in.

Mikie's nurse just came in and gave him his morphine.  That stuff goes right to work.  I'm going to slip out and go home and get some rest.  Lorraine called and said Jung from Shepherd Church of the Nazarene was bringing some food over.  I'm starved and real tired of eating out so I'm looking forward to a good meal! 

Oops, spoke too soon, Mikie is having a rough time and now we are having trouble keeping his oxygen levels up.  The nurse is going to call respiratory and have them come up and check him out. 

Well, I was going home.  It’s 9:35 PM and we just put a full face mask on him and that brought his oxygen level back up.  He’s in pain which is causing him distress and he is not taking deep breaths.  The morphine worked for a few minutes but just isn’t getting it right now.  He has his eyes closed but is still quite vocal (moaning) about the pain.  I remember having morphine once when I had an episode in my gut and went to the ER.  We never really did figure out what it was, though the doc suspected a kidney stone. If I had a gun I believe I would have shot myself as it hurt so badly.  They gave me the morphine and I remember the doc asking me if I was still in pain.  I remember telling him that it still hurt like hell but I just didn’t care.  I wonder sometimes if Morphine doesn’t help the people around the patient more than the patient because it just shuts them up.

He’s slowly winding down, it must be working.  His oxygen level is back up to 99% and if it wasn’t for the moaning you would think he was sound asleep.  

Let me post this and take a break.