Recovery: Day 2

So today started a little rough, I’m not going to lie.  We were up a lot of the night from beeping machines, and at 4 AM Andrew woke up and was having a hard time breathing.  There ended up being a couple of nurses and a doctor all trying to figure out what was wrong.  They did another EKG and listened to his lungs, everything seemed fine so the doctor told him it was probably from anxiety.  They gave him some Ativan to help with that and it also put him to sleep.  They came in again in the afternoon just to check up on him and see if anything has changed, so at least they are keep a close eye on him.  After that little adventure though today has been pretty awesome.  The first thing he said this morning is that he wanted to get up and move around today.  He has been such a good sport and had a great attitude.  He is going to show this surgery who is the boss! 

This morning they took out his epidural (which was fine since it didn’t seem to be doing much anyways).  They switched him from IV pain meds to oral pain meds, Oxycodone every 3 hours and Oxycontin every 8 hours, which he is handling wonderfully; they just make him extra tired.  They also changed his medicine again for the muscle spasms; he is trying Flexeril now to see if that works any better.  He sat up in the chair position to eat breakfast and watch TV but he was pretty disappointed when he realized that The Price Is Right wasn’t on this morning since it is Saturday.  He has used the CPM contraption thing twice today for about an hour each time. 

He ate his WHOLE lunch today AND kept it in his stomach! Yay! We got a nice surprise today as well.  Andrew got an Edible Arrangement delivered from Lisa Wall, a pharmacist that Andrew and I both love working with, and a Brooke Boren, a friend of mine from school who is also friends with Lisa.  When he saw what the deliver was he said “Yummy, yum, yum! Thanks a ton!”

He has slept a lot today, which I think is a good thing.  I told him that I loved him and he responded with “I nub you too”, so I think he was pretty out of it.  I did make sure that he was awake when the physical therapists came in to see if he wanted to get up and walk today though.  He was pretty excited to get up and try walking with the walker.  He did so good!  My family arrived right before he was getting up to walk and they were surprised to see him getting up.  Even the physical therapists were impressed. 

Here is the link to see him walking... be amazed, be very amazed.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150581824766354#!/photo.php?v=10150581824766354&notif_t=like

He didn’t walk too far because his shoulders started to hurt, so they turned him around (We made a tunnel for him to come back to his room under. Go Andrew!) and taught him how to get in and out of the bed when it is in the chair position and he got to eat his dinner while sitting up. 

He says that walking is easy, like really easy.  He says that he wants to walk all the time.  As a reward for how awesome he did at walking he also got to eat some bread and milk, which he loved.  (If you don’t know what bread and milk is, it is homemade bread, with milk poured over it, with some jam or honey on top.)  P.S. thanks for the homemade bread Mom!  It is really good for Andrew to have the company, but it is also nice for me to have the company and feel more at home.  We played Apples to Apples with my family, which was pretty entertaining since Andrew decided to talk like a mob boss with a speech impediment.  I tell ya, those drugs are pretty crazy.  My family left and Andrew felt bored so we played a game of UNO which didn’t work so well since his eyes couldn’t focus on the cards.  He decided he was still bored and wanted to go walk again.  While we were waiting for a nurse to come he was looking out the window and said “What is that red light?” So I told him that it was a stop light and he told me “I want to walk down there.  I want to push the button and make the light turn green.”  He was a little upset when the nurse told him that he couldn’t go outside let alone off of the sixth floor, so he settled for walking to the drinking fountain.  Now, the first time that he got up and walk today he traveled about 10-20 yards round trip.  His second adventure was around 120 yards round trip and he only stopped once!  He is progressing so well and eager to try new things.  The nurses, CNAs, physical therapists, and doctors here are so awesome and I think they are growing pretty fond of Andrew.     

Today’s Accomplishments

- Great attitude

- Doing well on new pain medications

- Eating more at a time and still keeping it down

- Got to brush his teeth and wash himself somewhat

-WALKING!!