For those of you who wonder why I don't blog as often as I did last surgery, my excuse is that we don't have proper internet access on the tenth floor. This is my bro Jay trying to get some sort of wireless connection from all the surrounding buildings. By the way it's nice for Ramona and I that my brother and mom are with us now. (My mom is currently sleeping in the lounge in the hospital. Like I said, the strict rules in Toronto General don't allow any 'visitor' to stay the night in a room that isn't private)















This is Mony openning a gift that her mom sent along with us (On the privacy of the blog, Mony was very thankful for the comfy pants and I forgot to tell you on the phone mom...oops) In the background you see her neighbor, she mostly sleeps, Ramona has had good people in the different rooms she's been in )














Part of the recovery process is this breathing incentive....thing...pretty much you have to inhale in this tube and it shows you how powerful you suck and it has this little blue thing that floats when you inhale...and....i give up...go to a hospital and ask to look at one of these breathing incentive devices...















This picture is merely to show you how good my wife looks with her new hat and glasses. The picture was taken the night before surgery














Now...trying to catch up on all the technical information and the thoughts and feelings attached to that. Ramona's pain is largely under control. When I got to the hospital at 11 this morning. Ramona began to have more pain. Coincidence I was told. With a few boosts of Morphine in her epidural and an ant-inflammatory plus two tylenol she began to feel better. Pain-wise the rest of the day was very bearable. She is beginning to be itchy from Morphine use.
Ever since Mony got to her room on the tenth floor yesterday there have been no airleaks in her lung or chest cavity (I'm forgetting all my technical terms in my sleep here). This is a good sign and they will likely take the tubes from her chest in the morning. I'm getting the impression that if possible they remove most of tubes all at once. If they remove the IV, catheter, epidural, and drainage tubes in the morning she'll be almost a free woman.
The physiotherapists in the TGH are concerned that Ramona isn't walking better. They are researching precisely what was cut and what was reattached in the hip surgery by Dr. Ferguson. To be continued. Hopefully physio has a better idea what is going on tomorrow.
Speaking of walking, Ramona walked out in the hallways three times today. I'm impressed. I don't know how to describe this and Ramona may look at me funny later when she reads this but I continue to be amazed at how flexible her upper body is after how damaged her rib cage must be. Modern pain relief techniques are amazing.
We continue to be concerned what the left lung (theoretically the good lung). If six or seven 'new' spots appeared on the right lung since the last CT, it's pretty hard to have faith that the left lung will show clear when they do a CT now in a few days. Much faith needed.
Concerning the scare last evening with Ramona's arm being immobile and potential blood clots and all that stuff. I'm incredible thankful that all seems to be well. Her left arm has as much mobility by now as it did before surgery. Conclusion is that the epidural probably wasn't placed perfectly and they slightly overdosed the amount of morphine through there.
So.....having said all this....Ramona will hopefully be out of the hospital by Friday and likely fly home a few days later. There are plenty of reasons they may want us there longer, but that was the nurses prediction today.
-Earl