T - 0 to T + 2 The Next Day - Nurse Joanne

Surgery was Thursday, Thursday night/Friday morning was a lot of monitoring and nursing care throughout the night. I did not get much sleep.

The nurse's aide took my vital signs every 4 hours. I remember BP about 105 over 65, or something close to that. My oxygen was 91. This was always an issue and I had to suck on a device to get it up. With hard work and much pain, I could usually manage to get it up to 94.

I was constantly reminded that I would have to get up and walk. At that point, it hurt to LOOK up, I could not imagine that I would GET up.

At 8am the shifts changes and shortly after that I met my day nurse, Joanne Ramoutar. I know that so many of you have been praying for me, but I didn't know that God sends a special nurse. Joanne was wonderful. She asked how I was doing and about getting up and walking. I told her that I felt terrible and the thought of getting up was painful. She said, "OK" and came back in a few minutes with two Percocet and told me to rest. I went into a deep, uninterrupted sleep. When I woke up, Joanne was there and asked if I felt like walking -- I said, "Sure". She adjusted the tubes attached to me, adjusted the bed, and I got up with no problem at all. The next thing I knew, I was walking up and down the hall with the other pole pushers. It was easy and I felt great!

The next time that my vitals were being taken by the aide, Joanne came in. The aide told her about my low oxygen level. Joanne said that she would try it. First she switched the oxygen sensor to the opposite side from the BP cuff and then she said that I need to sit up straighter so that my diaphragm was not compressed. She gently helped me do that and my oxygen went from 91 to 99.

After I was able to get up and walk, Joanne said that she could remove the catheter for my urine. I asked if she was good at it, she said yes and got up and walk to the other side of the bed. It was out and I never felt a thing.

Joanne kept a close watch on my pain medications and also started me on stool softeners -- something I would appreciate later.

Later that day, Barbara and I were going to visit Kate. We asked for the "Escort Service". Someone came to disconnect the IV, but he got flustered because he didn't know how to disconnect the fittings that were used. He said that I needed to wait for a wheel chair to take me down. We never got a wheel chair, but Kate was sleeping anyway. The next time Kate was available, we asked Joanne. She fixed my IV tube, disconnected it and said that we could walk down. It was so easy and so nice to be free of the pole.

I had my first visit with Kate. She looked good. She said that she had no pain -- I was amazed.

Our son, Norman, visited for a while on Friday morning and then left to catch a plane for CA. It was so good to see him.

The rest of Friday went well and I got more rest on Friday night. The next challenge was to get some output from my digestive system. It was a criteria for going home on Saturday. I, actually, did not care if I had to stay until Sunday. The atmosphere was pleasant and the care was good.