After surgery, Clayton appeared to be doing great. Throughout that first night, he still seemed to be doing well. Around 8 a.m. Wednesday morning, we noticed his blood pressure drop drastically. The anesthesiologist over seeing his post-op care at the time said we would watch him, but she was OK with that due to his meds. He was on a continuous morphine drip and some precidex. He slept most all day. As the day went on, he wanted to wake less and less, his blood pressures stayed low and his O2 saturations got worse. The nurses continued doing tests throughout the morning, but it wasn't until nearly 2 p.m that they tested his blood sugar and found that it was 23. If your not sure just how low that is, Google it. It's low. He was nearly comatose. They decided to take him off of the morphine and precidex. So no pain meds. After major back surgery. But they wanted to be sure he would wake. Slowly he did. Meanwhile, they gave him dextrose through his IV. The problem with their plan, was once he woke he had no pain meds and because they couldn't decide what pain meds to give him, he was without them for nearly three and a half hours last night. At 9 p.m. he got a pain med that didn't seem to make any difference, then around 10 p.m. he got some morphine and slept through the night slept on and off. His respiratory rate improved, but his O2 stats still sucked.
Thursday, today, his heart rate and respiratory rate were slightly improved, but no luck with his O2. We monitored his glucose and blood gas every two hours. Levels showed he was a little acidotic and not holding his blood sugar levels. After a long day of waiting, we were finally able to make a plan with the doctor (not our orthopedic surgeon, but the doc overseeing his post-op care). We were finally able to get his blood sugar stable, but his CO2 and PH levels have been up and down. It's been kind of a mess...oh and the bad news is that right now, because of respiratory issues we have had to put him on pain management that does not involve sedatives. Not an easy thing to do. We are having to try IV Tylenol only. Rough go of it for everyone right now...
No comments:
Post a Comment