end of day 2

I'm at home in Brooklyn, ready for some nice quiet sleep before getting back to the hospital early tomorrow. I had a nice lunch, and coffee, and dinner with friends and family visiting today and yesterday, so don't worry - I'm doing well, too. I realized when I got home that part of the reason I was hesitant to come home was that the house would seem too empty on my own. Of course, I also wanted to stay at the hospital to stay close to Spoons, but I also didn't really want to see the house so empty. Now that I'm here, it's OK, but it definitely makes it seem like the surgery is something happening to him alone, whereas when I'm there, it can feel more like something that we're going through together, and the latter feels better somehow.

During the rest of the day, there were more visits from lots of members of the staff (so many people!) who each had their own tips and questions. In addition to the respiratory specialist below (who asked my permission to call Spoons "sweetheart," which, of course, I granted) there was a spunky redheaded physical therapist who helped Spoons figure out how to walk better and The Surgeon (capital letters, since he's an important guy!) who performed the surgery who came by to check in. When the physical therapist measured the oxygen levels described in the last post, she was getting numbers in the high 90's (96%, 99%) so she was happy, and we were too.

Another doctor we've seen a lot of is the fellow (here, used as a technical term, not just a word like "chap" or "bloke") who is working with Spoons' surgeon. Let's call him "Soul Patch." Soul Patch is a very soft-spoken young doctor who checks up on Spoons every few hours during the day and reports back to The Surgeon. Soul Patch came in this afternoon and said that everything in Spoons' blood looks good. I asked what kind of stuff they were looking at, and he mentioned things like hemoglobin, white blood cells, and especially salts, since the salt levels may have been affected by chemo, even though it was about 9 months ago. He said that they'd monitor the salt levels and give Spoons magnesium or potassium or others if needed by IV -- kind of like intravenous Gatorade. In a few days he'll be able to eat again, but not yet.

Question time! You can send questions to us by email or in the comments below. Spoons' aunt Anne asks "Any meds besides morphine? When will they switch to something milder?" So far, he has morphine in a drip that goes at a constant level with a button that he can press for an additional dose. I don't know when they will go to something else, but I do know that he can't bring the morphine home! I'll find out. He also had a lot of nausea today when trying to walk around, so they gave him Zofran for that. The nausea could be coming from the anesthesia from yesterday still, so we'll see if it's still there tomorrow.

Good night, all. Thanks for your emails and phone calls. Even if we haven't responded just yet, they have meant a lot.