Today's My Birthday?

I’m sorry for the long delay in posting…I know a lot of people have been checking the blog frequently for updates and there hasn’t been any recently. The last couple days have been busy and completely exhausting (mentally, physically, and emotionally), and I just haven’t had the time to post. I was hoping to do a quick update on Saturday night when I was at work, but the entire night was insane and I was running around the whole 13 hours I was there.

Saturday was kind of a rough day for my dad. I think a big problem was that he was being over-medicated with pain pills, so he was very drowsy and sleepy the whole day. He’s never really taken narcotics before, so none of us knew how he would react to strong pills like oxycodone and darvocet, and apparently, he’s pretty sensitive to them. They’ve switched his pain regimen around a little bit, so now he’s taking Tylenol #3, which seems to be controlling his pain pretty well. On Saturday, my dad also passed out when he tried to stand up from his chair to go to the bathroom. This was most likely because of low blood pressure, but they checked everything out with an echocardiogram and EKG to make sure his heart was okay, which it was, so that’s good news. Overall, it was kind of a setback though because he didn’t do much walking that day and they restarted some of the things they were able to take away the day before. An infectious disease (ID) doctor also came by on Saturday because my dad continued to have fevers, and they started Zosyn (a stronger IV antibiotic) to take care of any possible infection that might be present. Yesterday, the ID doctor said that they would probably be able to stop the antibiotic today because he didn’t see any source of infection, his white blood cell count was coming down, and his blood cultures were negative so far.

Yesterday was a little bit better, so we started to move forward again. His pain is better controlled with the Tylenol #3, he did really well with his breathing exercises, and he had a couple good walks around the floor. He is still pretty sleepy and just not feeling very social, even though there’s almost always family there during the day. He also still doesn’t have much of an appetite, which is pretty normal after surgery, but weird to see my dad only ask for ice water. I hope his appetite starts coming back soon because I feel like he needs some nutrition to help his body heal. I haven’t been to the hospital yet today, but will be going over sometime in the next couple of hours.

Today also happens to be my 27th birthday, but it doesn’t feel like it at all. TJ, my mom, my aunt Diane, my uncle Doug, and I were able to go out to dinner last night, so that was nice. Today just seems like any other day this past week: I sleep, I get ready, I go to the Heart Hospital, then I go to work all night. Nothing special today. That’s alright though, I can’t tell you the last time I had a big birthday celebration. I guess it just doesn’t mean that much to me, especially not this year.

If I get the chance, I’ll try to post again sometime tonight (or early tomorrow morning) when I’m at work, but I can’t make any promises. Hope you all have a good day.