The Nightly Update, the Second Friday

It's not hard for me to tell that it's been another week in the hospital. I am exhausted and cannot wait to have a night at home tomorrow night. Last night was okay, but still had some whimpering. I figured out that morphine just does not do the trick like Lortab for Elvie's pain management, so today we set out to do a little more round-the-clock pain management. On Lortab, Elvie has slept very well and been in a much better mood. She seems more and more like herself with every nap she takes.

The one downer to the day is that she needed to have an NG tube placed. She just wasn't eating enough on her own. It was a downward spiral sort of situation, and we're looking to start moving back up the spiral now. Basically, when she was in pain, she couldn't eat, and when her pain was managed well, she was too tired and loopy to eat, and then to compound the issue, when she didn't eat, she lacked strength to eat. I hope that makes sense; my brain isn't offering me a different way to explain it. Already after just one tube feeding I saw a difference in her energy level, and she ate more by mouth at the second feeding. 

So the medicine is working to control her pain, and though it makes her loopy and sleepy, the food she's getting through the tube is working to give her enough energy to eat her next meal. I hope things continue to improve in this area. The other upside to the NG tube is that we can give her the Lortab through it at night without waking her; I'd been opting for morphine to allow her to sleep, and now we can have the best of both worlds. Clearly, though I prefer life without an NG tube, it is rocking Elvie's world for the better.

Zinashi continues to have a hard time with us not being at home, together as a family, and that is harder right now than Elvie's hospital trials. She tells us every day that she wants Elvie to come home so we can be together. So please say a little prayer for us that Elvie will get stronger and heal quickly over the weekend so that we can all be at home together soon.

Now it's time to say goodnight. I don't think I could type another coherent paragraph if it were required to save my life. Good thing I don't have to.