The day started this morning with the sister coming to give him his meds to find that some idiot had put empty packets back into his locked med cupboard and he had run out of 4 of them. Half an hour later they finally located some more, that set the tone for the day looking back over it.
The Doctor looked at Marks wound this morning and because it was still leaking spinal fluid even though they'd put a couple more stitches in, he decided it needed a lumbar drain. This was at 9am, we'll do it later this morning he said. Famous last words, it was done at 6pm, that beats yesterdays five hour wait!! They did this in his room, they put him on his side, bought his legs up into as near a fetal position as possible with Mark, put a huge hollow needle into his spine, fed a very thin tube in, took the needle out and now he's got what looks like a piece of spaghetti wiggling around on his back under some clear dressings, connected to a collection device on a stand by his bed, I don't understand how this works even though I asked, but it does. Now the spinal fluid by-passes the wound and comes out at the bottom of his back. it only took about 15 mins. That will stay there for a few days at least then they'll re look at the wound and if it's drying out and healing it can come out, if if isn't it stays in for a bit longer. So it doesn't look like he'll be coming home this week.
He also discussed with the Doctor, the fact that the wound pain is settling down but he's having pain again just like he's had before the surgery and he was getting worried about that as you can imagine. However, the Doctor did say he needs to wait and give it more time to settle down before drawing any conclusions. Mark is putting a lot of faith in this operation getting rid of the majority of the pain so I am really hoping it WILL settle down.
The Physios and me also tried to get him of bed this morning onto one their commode chairs to do his toilet, but they're tiny compared to Marks and he couldn't sit up straight enough to be able to actually stay on the chair so he had to get back into bed. Poor thing is having to do toilet in bed again, an undignified action he was hoping to avoid. They started that process just before I left to drive back to up Bradford at 7pm and I got a text 2 hours later saying they hadn't come to clean him up yet ...... that's a disgusting way to treat people. he was not happy. It's just as well I wasn't there, some 'words' would have been spoken.
The physios also bought him up some therabands, stretchy lengths of thin rubber that they've tied to the side and top rails of the bed and he can use them to exercise along with a hand squeezy thing to exercise hands, wrists and forearms. He doesn't want to loose too much more muscle power if he can help it.
So today wasn't a great day, but we spoke to Mike this afternoon on Skype from Dubai and that was lovely so it wasn't all bad.
The Doctor looked at Marks wound this morning and because it was still leaking spinal fluid even though they'd put a couple more stitches in, he decided it needed a lumbar drain. This was at 9am, we'll do it later this morning he said. Famous last words, it was done at 6pm, that beats yesterdays five hour wait!! They did this in his room, they put him on his side, bought his legs up into as near a fetal position as possible with Mark, put a huge hollow needle into his spine, fed a very thin tube in, took the needle out and now he's got what looks like a piece of spaghetti wiggling around on his back under some clear dressings, connected to a collection device on a stand by his bed, I don't understand how this works even though I asked, but it does. Now the spinal fluid by-passes the wound and comes out at the bottom of his back. it only took about 15 mins. That will stay there for a few days at least then they'll re look at the wound and if it's drying out and healing it can come out, if if isn't it stays in for a bit longer. So it doesn't look like he'll be coming home this week.
He also discussed with the Doctor, the fact that the wound pain is settling down but he's having pain again just like he's had before the surgery and he was getting worried about that as you can imagine. However, the Doctor did say he needs to wait and give it more time to settle down before drawing any conclusions. Mark is putting a lot of faith in this operation getting rid of the majority of the pain so I am really hoping it WILL settle down.
The Physios and me also tried to get him of bed this morning onto one their commode chairs to do his toilet, but they're tiny compared to Marks and he couldn't sit up straight enough to be able to actually stay on the chair so he had to get back into bed. Poor thing is having to do toilet in bed again, an undignified action he was hoping to avoid. They started that process just before I left to drive back to up Bradford at 7pm and I got a text 2 hours later saying they hadn't come to clean him up yet ...... that's a disgusting way to treat people. he was not happy. It's just as well I wasn't there, some 'words' would have been spoken.
The physios also bought him up some therabands, stretchy lengths of thin rubber that they've tied to the side and top rails of the bed and he can use them to exercise along with a hand squeezy thing to exercise hands, wrists and forearms. He doesn't want to loose too much more muscle power if he can help it.
So today wasn't a great day, but we spoke to Mike this afternoon on Skype from Dubai and that was lovely so it wasn't all bad.
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