Sunday, May 30, 2004

friday and the weekend

Sorry about the delay, haven't had much time to type...

Friday

started pretty well, Ethan was settled in the morning, the catheter and epidural came out. As the day went on, Ethan's temperature went up, urine output increased and he was becoming restless. The effects of the epidural were wearing off. Pain was setting in, so morphine was prescribed. This helped the pain but by evening, Ethan's stomach was severely bloated, it appeared he had a bowel obstruction. An enema and oral laxatives did nothing. His breathing was irregular and the morphine was increased. An xray and blood tests were ordered. The xray was finally done at 6am saturday morning. (Long night for Jo - she missed Katie Mactier at the World Champs)

Saturday

The xray and blood tests were clear. At around 9am, grumpy Jo made Ethan get out of bed and into the bath. With morphine on board, Ethan walked back from the bathroom and his stomach started deflating! Normal breakfast (weetbix) was consumed. The rest of the day was spent trying to get Ethan active to help clear his chest and also manage his pain - not an easy thing.

Sunday

Further pain management today. Ethan had a full breakfast (weetbix and apple puree). We tried to get him to do as many laps of the ward as possible. (to help clear his chest and also to indicate to the staff that he was good enough for day leave) This worked, after a dose of morphine, we went down to Jo's uncle and aunties to celebrate Erin's 4th birthday. It was good to spend time with the girls and get out of the hospital for a while. We had about a 4 hour window till the morphine wore off, before we had to get Ethan back to MMC for his fix. He had a temperature tonight but was still eating, drinking and moving about.

Tomorrow is the start of chemo, he will be in for a week (5 days), then home for the weekend. He is sized up for radiotherapy on wednesday. The oncologist consultant will have spoken to other contacts worldwide about one of the chemo drugs. It can affect the developing heart, so probably won't be used.

The easiest way to comment is to do an 'anonymous' comment, you don't need to enter in any other details that way.
Cheers, Luke

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

our thoughts and love are with all of you, give us a yell if there is anything we can do for you all..with love the olssons xxxx

Anonymous said...

Just finished reading Luke and Jo - it is 8.45 Wed morning - PLEASE let me know if we can help out in some way - anything at all. Everybody sends their love and thoughts - take care, Pauline, Laurie and crew