Friday August 19, 2011

Today started off rough. Nick barely slept last night because of the pain. Well, pain mainly, coupled with nurses visiting every hour. That makes it impossible to feel rested the next day.
I spent all morning by his side just rubbing his head while he tried to sleep. We gave him a quick sponge bath of his front side in the afternoon. Not his back though. We can’t even get him rolled enough on his side to prop a small pillow under his ribs. The pain is intense. We talked the doctor into upping his dose of morphine some more. Finally, after that medicine adjustment his pain level dipped down to the five and six range. That’s a level five or six out of a ten maximum. Ten is the most intolerable pain you could ever imagine being in. He was at a nine this morning. He was at a ten last night. So, a five sounds real good right about now.
He is on a soft/liquid diet only. Tomato soup, chicken broth, yogurt, pudding, juice, etc. His insides need to settle down a bit before sending anything solid down there. They’re trying to prevent nausea as well, with the all liquid diet and certain drugs. Getting nauseous and vomiting would be outrageously painful. No, we don’t want that right now!