Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Well, today was better up to a point. The pain doctor came in and re-evaluated Mark's pain and the medications and made some significant changes. He did all of this after a lengthy discussion with me and his primary nurse. Mark was considerably more comfortable after the changes. His physical therapy was also limited to range of motion exercises because of the incident yesterday with such a jump in his heart rate.

He had a quiet afternoon despite the rain and thunder outside. A cold front came through and the temperature here has dropped significantly. (Apologies to all you northerners but it's about 55 right now.) The cool air will be nice since the air conditioning system at the hospital is being shut down this weekend for upgrading so they added individual units into the rooms. The thing looks like R2D2's ugly stepsister, but fortunately it is quiet.

Then after dinner all hell broke loose. Mark had been comfortable through dinner and we were watching a movie when he suddenly started yelling in pain, sweating and agitated. He kept telling us to remove his casts, so we did and both his knees were swollen and bright red. Jose and I looked at each other in horror. He couldn't even stand us touching them. His nurse, Marcia, Jose, and I assumed he was having an allergic reaction to the topical pain cream they started using last night. The doctor came in and confirmed it, and after a shot of morphine, slathering his knees and legs with lotion, and washing it off, it finally started to subside. Then the doctor ordered a lydocaine jelly to help speed up the process. The poor kid was beside himself and we all felt terrible at the amount of pain and anguish he was going through. After about an hour and a half he finally fell asleep. It was awful. He just kept saying he wanted to go home and have this all done with.

On a better note, he enjoyed a package of letters and poems from a friend's first grade class, and a signed poster from another's sixth grade class, which we hung in his room. He really enjoys the cards and notes a lot. Thanks to all who have been sending them along. They really help.