Day 3 after surgery (i think)

A lot has been happening but not a lot of progress in health. The tube in his nose was taken out yesterday which alleviated the throat pain. His BP remains stable without medicine- very good! He was given anti-nausea meds but they haven't worked. He cannot keep anything down. He was allowed sprite and jello yesterday and liquid diet today. The tray for breakfast, lunch and dinner all came with tea, juice, jello and some sort of broth or tomato soup. He did not eat anything except jello. I think sprite stays with him better than juice, tea or water. It seems like it is more of a mucous buildup than stomach nausea which we told every dr. and nurse but no change meds for that.

His hemoglobin has been lower than 8 so they have had to give 3 units of blood all together since surgery. Surgeon wanted to hold off on it unless dropped to 6 but Nephrologist did it when it was 7.5 or 7.8. Crazy how the opinions range on everything. We want to avoid the blood transfusions because it makes him a harder match for a transplant kidney. They have upped the epogen shots which will improve the hemoglobin but they take a long time to work. Dr. said if he eats and gets moving it will help.

Dr. Burtch (bruce's surgeon) was not there sat or sunday. He came today and asks Bruce what he's still doing in ICU. I spoke with him and he seemed little pissed they haven't gotten him up moving yet. I have asked them to do it since yesterday morning. Every nurse has a reason or excuse but they all say it would be good for him. They gave him a sponge bath and changed his sheets 2 nights in a row but they couldn't let him just sit up in bed on the side of it for awhile?!?!? I'm not talking about walking down the hall, just MOVE HIM AROUND ON THE BED! Dr. Burtch just shook his head and said we have to get him out of ICU now and get him moving. He assured it would happen today. Nurse put in request by noon but it did not happen and his still there tonight! sigh....

The worst part of this for me is that he is STILL acting like he just came off anesthesia. Without getting into too much detail...he says VERY strange things that make no sense, has no short term memory, gets very confused and agitated, and I can look at him and just see he's not there. Today he looked at me with a really scared look and said "I really don't know what is going on." It broke my heart. I talked to Nephrologist about it and he said nothing in blood chemistry would make him act this way. Phosphorus is high but that is all he mentioned. He blamed the morphine. Dr. Burtch said it was morphine but he thought he was on continuous flow. I told him we stopped that the first night and he has barely had any. Then he said not to worry about it and he needed to get out of ICU. The nurse said that he could possibly have something called ICU psychosis. I looked it up and suppose it is possible. Nurse thought it wasn't morphine because she knows that he has not had ANY all day today and he was even worse mentally than days before. It could be combination of things and once he gets more dialysis and eats, his system will get rid of toxins and left over medicine if that is what is causing this. I know it will get better but it is very disturbing and scary to me.

He had full 4 hour dialysis this morning. They pulled 2.6 liters off of him. I know he lost weight from it but I asked dialysis nurse if he lost weight and she said she didnt weigh him. But I know she did because it is part of her job and I watched her do it 2 sec before I asked. I'm not even going to get into how rude she was! I hope I have time to speak to head of dialysis tomorrow and get new nurse for next time which is wed. I can't take same person sitting in room for 4 hours again and Bruce is really bothered by her.

I hope moving to new room tomorrow helps and hope he can get some food or drink to stay down. I am a postive person but I am becoming very frustrated and might get kicked out of hospital before this is all over.