Things were finally taking an upturn. After weeks tethered to the bed by various pumps, all the assistive devices came out and he only had one more night to spend in bed before he would finally be able to get up and start moving and start with cardiac rehab and some physical therapy. I stayed with him as he was moved out of the ICU back to the telemetry unit, got him settled, helped with his bed bath and about 10 pm, headed home to get some sleep myself and I wrote this quick update.
Tommy update: Things have been going the right direction the last few days. He is out of the ICU setting and back in the CCU which is much more conducive to visitors. Both of the external pumps have been removed and he has so far remained stable so he can start getting out of bed for the first time in nearly a month tomorrow. Next stage is seeing how well his heart can meet the demands of his body and working on reducing the IV medications that have been stabilizing him.
He continues to encourage visitors as he is likely to be hospitalized for some days yet as he begins a long rehab process.
Things should get easier for me now that he is no longer tethered to the bed.
If you’d like to bring a meal to share with him, drop me a line.
I don’t remember what the last things were we said to each other. I know I got his breakfast order for the next morning and I remember that he was grumpy that he had to spend one more night flat on his back. The pumps were out but he had holes from them in a major leg artery that had to be allowed to clot off to keep from massive internal bleeding. His IVs kept running but they turned off the heparin for 24 hours per protocol.
I was dog tired and pretty much collapsed once I got home and got the usual chores done. The phone woke me up sometime after 2 in the morning.
Life, The Universe, and Everything 