Changes!

Changes keep happening.  We got Woody's antibiotic infusion underway a little after noon and not too long after that, we got a call from the people handling the infusions saying that the doctor wanted to cut back on the amount of this type of antibiotic that Woody was grtting. A test result from Wednesday's labs showed that amount need to be lessened.  I told her that his infusion had already started.  She asked if by any chance we knew exactly when the infusion started.  AND, I was able to tell her that we could because I had started the timer when the infusion started.  I have been doing that so Woody can check to see how far into the 90 minutes he was and also so we could tell when the medicine was supposed to be gone.  So she adjusted the time to a total of 72 minutes instead of the 90.  I will do that with the rest of the infusion "balls" that we have and then they will adjust the next ones they send accordingly.  I was so glad that we had decided to use the timer!  So that is one change that happened today.

A little later in the afternoon, a home health nurse came to check on Woody and to change the surgical dressing for the first time.  His incision looked remarkably good.  She got it all cleaned up and applied new dressing and rewrapped his leg.  She is going to come back for the next change too.  That may be a job that I get out of thanks to home health!  You won't hear me complaining!  The nurse counted 27 stitches plus one part of it is stitched together with what she called "running stitches." She said that that section is just a continuous thread looping the wound shut.  So looks like he is well stitched up.  I kept wondering if he got stitched up by two different med students each practicing a different method of doing stitches.  Just a funny thought that ran through my head...I'm sure there's were reasons for the two types!

I spent the morning making chicken noodle soup.  We both enjoyed it for lunch and will enjoy several more meals from that particular cooking effort.  It did taste good on this cold day.  This afternoon while waiting for the nurse to come, I put together a little inside herb garden with grow light that I got for Christmas.  Maybe we will have fresh Herb's growing right in our kitchen before too long!  Interesting concept...no messy dirt.

Woody has made more progress today.  He came upstairs for the first time.  He comes up and down the stairs sitting.  He uses the rolling office chair to get and upstairs.  He started doing the exercises that the PT guy left on our computer.  Last night, I printed off the ones Woody is supposed to work on.  Tonight he said that he wanted to fix his own salad for supper...I didn't argue!  So he is doing more and more each day and getting around a bit more easily.  At this point I would say that he is progressing nicely with his recovery from surgery.  His pain is at a minimum.  He does know when he is walking on that leg and when he moves certain ways, but when sitting still he has no pain.  He hasn't taken anything for pain except Tyelenol for days now.

That about summarizes our third full day home from the hospital.  I still can't establish a routine!