Day 3: Saturday

For the second morning in a row, my morning task was to gather some things from home. On today's list was the kids shampoo and body wash. Charlie was going to be getting a bed bath.

The drive in on a Saturday is great and, when I got to Charlie's room, he seemed in a good mood. Aly reported that they had met his new nurse and that she seemed great. So far so good and it's only 8am!

The bed bath was a hit; "it's like I'm at a salon", he said. He also is allowed to slowly sit up a bit more. This means that his laptop comes into play, which means he gets to compile his video story for his audience! Getting back to his video editing and noticing that he has 5 new subscribers is a pretty good day in Charlie's world.

We were visited by Dr. Pain - she is the head of The Pain Team® . She was really great and she listened to our concerns about the night before and talked to us about what she thought the issue was. She proposed a new pain management plan that both Aly and I thought sounded very well thought through and made such good sense. 

The thing about Saturdays and Sundays in the hospital is that things move at a different pace. I find that the doctor on call at the weekend can fall into 3 different categories.

Option 1: The Same Doctor 
This is a great situation. The lottery has come in and it so happens that your doctor is on call this weekend and, so, that doctor knows your case and has more time to hang out and learn and teach. 

Option 2: The Boss Doctor 
This is my favorite. The doctor on call is the head of the department. The person might not know your case very well but really knows their stuff and is usually really good at explaining. I always get the sense that the Boss Doctor likes to be on the floor for a change and not behind the desk. Boss Doctor also doesn't have any patients, unlike...

Option 3: The Filling In Doctor 
This is the worst. The doctor doesn't know your case but does have their own patients (they are someone else's Option 1)

This next part is not really for the squeamish, sorry. Dr. Pain thinks that Charlie's pain is muscle related. He has an epidural in place (that was put in during the surgery and, so, is literally placed with surgical precision) that is taking care of the pain in his spine where it was opened to perform the rhizotomy. To get access to the spine, though, the back muscles needed to be pulled apart. Dr. Pain's hypotheses is that a muscle relaxant type medicine will help Charlie better than the opioids which, along with making him nauseous also constipate him. For those that know Charlie, constipation is not a good path to start down. Dr. Pain made her suggestion to the neurosurgery team (Charlie is still a patient of Neurosurgery) and they think that her suggestion is great. So, as of 2pm Saturday we are on a routine cocktail that is ibuprofen, muscle relaxant and anti nausea. The nurse also has had her quiver fully reloaded with opioids should Charlie have a repeat of last night's bad spell. Add in that Dr. Pain is on call all weekend and will be checking in again tomorrow and things are looking quite good in the world of pain... and in the world of video editing.


 

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