Out of ICU

Today, they moved me out of ICU into a monitored floor where they put the colon and cardiac patients.  I was here last year for my surgeries and actually had the same nurse today that I did last year.  There's a lot of friendly faces, so it's comforting to be here.  (I did have some bad ones last time, so I'm a little concerned if they show up, but let's see how it goes.)

I'm incredibly weak and exhausted and still haven't managed to get out of bed yet.  Thank god for the foley and the stoma:  Everything just shows up in a bag somewhere.  I'm not eating yet, but hopefully by this weekend, as the bowels seem to be working now, unlike my past surgeries where it took a while for them to wake up.  I've been setup with two drains, both in my backside.  One is a penrose in my left buttock that is draining the infection site.  They had to take a nice chunk of tissue out of the site as well due to the infection.  There is a Jackson-Pratt drain in my right buttock to help drain where a majority of the surgical work was done around the anus/rectum and where the abscess and JPouch was removed.They put an ostomy bag around the penrose to catch the drainage from the infection site.  I call it my "tail", as it's about 2 feet long and hangs behind me.  We'll see how much fun this is once I get vertical.  This makes being in bed a little difficult, as being on any of my backside is painful, so on my sides it is.  My hips are a little irritated by all this, but frequent shifting removes some of the discomfort.  Hopefully, once vertical, this will be a little easier.

The optomologist stopped by today to check out my eyes.  At some point along this journey, I broke blood vessels in both my eyes and blood has started to pool around the iris and take over the whites in my eyes.  Depending on what side of the bed you're on, I either look completely normal or like I'm hemorraghing through my skull.  I can't see it, but my wife got some pictures so I could check it out.  (Yes, I have pictures of the drains as well.  Hey, I can't see it from my view point!)

The fever has broke and has not returned since yesterday, so that's a good sign for the infection.  My blood pressure and volume has returned to normal, as well as my heart rate.  It's nice being stable!  The full body rash has also subsided:  Infectious Disease noted that was either from being septic or the reaction to the morphine.  One more pain medication that I won't be on again.  Can't say I'm disappointed, because there surely are better ones than that lollipop/candy cane of a pain med.  Good for short term, but aweful for long-term in my eyes.

Now, we'll look to trying to get out of this bed.  I'm not necessarily sleeping, but my eyes are pretty much always closed.  I can't remember ever being this tired.  Pain management has gotten much better today:  Being in pain is the worst feeling in the world.  And that's saying something considering I haven't had anything to eat or drink since Sunday.  I'm still being pounded with fluids and swelling like a tick.  The kidneys are a little slow to respond and most is outputting through the bowels:  This happened with my past surgeries so hopefully this will switch up pretty soon and I'll start to alleviate some of this water weight.