Morphine pumps are great. I love them. I felt like a happy camper using mine, once I realized they wanted me to not be in pain.

The level of care that is given depends entirely on the staff. The night people and the morning people are great. The afternoon/evening people, not so much. Okay, not at all.

My surgery was on Monday. I woke up off and on but I wasn’t really there until 4:30 Monday night when I couldn’t talk much, but I stayed awake and coherent. I am so glad R was here. The surgery was less of a picnic than they were hoping and his being here made my life better.

Yesterday they gave me the inhaled volume respiratory practice. My inhale volume is going down, so I am trying to do it even more often than they said. I have had a lot of bronchitis and several bouts of pneumonia. I’d like to stave off any possibilities of that from this surgery.

I did not walk at all yesterday. I asked for help to do that and never got any. So I spent my whole “Day 1” after surgery laying in bed. I did move around in the bed quite a bit, but…

I’ll have to have a catheter for 10 days because of the nick to the bladder.

I’m not totally back to normal, attention-span wise, because when a conversation gets too extended, my brain just shuts off. It’s hard to respond when they ask you a question when you don’t know what they said.

When R left last night he suggested that I ask for a sleeping pill. So I did. They brought it at 9 and I slept from about 9:30 to 5. That was very nice. I was glad to be asleep and I hope that will help with my coherence.

My best nurses have been Ouida on Monday, and Karen and Wendy Tuesday night. I don’t know who my nurse will be today.