Tuesday, March 30, 2010--Pain Level--TEN

After the surgery Kyle was taken to the ICU. He was adamant before surgery that they remove the respirator tube as soon as possible. The tube hurt and bothered his throat so much from the last surgery. They assured him that as soon as he could breath on his own that they would remove the tube. Luckily, they removed the tube right away.

Also, they used titanium plates to secure the two bone pieces together and then titanium screws to attach them. I forgot to mention that in the previous blog.

Kyle was still a little sedated until about 8:00p.m.. After 8 o'clock he was alert and able to have full function of his left hand, arm and leg. This movement was a big relief for me. I didn't want to have to stay to do rehab. Both of us want to just go home. He said the he is visualizing it and doing everything that they ask him to do--eat, stand, walk, etc....

He had a rough night. He didn't sleep much because the pain was a TEN, but he didn't want to have the morphine because he was afraid that it would cause him to throw up and then the pain level would be off the charts. He is on one pain killer pill--but it can only be given every 4 hours. By the time three hours has passed he is in too much pain. I talked to the nurse and we have decided to order two pills and only take one every two hours to stay on top of the pain.

He will be having another MRI this afternoon and hopefully moved to the surgical floor. His head is pretty swollen, but not as bad as the first surgery. For some reason he is really swollen on his left side between his eye and his ear. We just applied ice packs to take the swelling down.

Today Houston's weather is in the 80's. It is a beautiful day. And Barbara Bush is in the hospital next to MD Anderson. She was admitted over the weekend.