Relative Something

When I walked into the hospital yesterday around 11:30 a.m., the temperature outside was 69°F. When Cyndie and I departed from the hospital around 3:00 p.m., it was 51°F. Somewhere between those two times, I made my way to the pharmacy within the hospital to pick up the medications prescribed by the doctors. There were seven of them. They barely fit into the bag. The clerk needed to walk around the plexiglass pass-through barrier to a half-door on the side to hand it to me.

I don’t remember this many drugs involved in Cyndie’s recovery from joint replacement surgeries.

Apparently, surgery for shattered bones is more painful than those for artificial joints. Speaking of pain, this go-round for Cyndie has been difficult to witness. The efforts of hospital staff to control her pain produced less-than-ideal results.

There are advantages and disadvantages to recovering in the hospital. One big advantage is that drugs can be administered by IV, which is faster acting. Some disadvantages experienced by Cyndie included understaffing and limited resources. The nurses are stretched beyond their limits to care for all the patients and oxygenation monitors needed to be shared among rooms. They didn’t have enough cold packs to keep them frozen between uses.

They also can’t give non-prescription meds which become a great augmentation of pain control once home, interlacing Tylenol or Ibuprofen between doses of the narcotics.

Getting home allowed us to fill the gaps that Cyndie faced in the hospital.

It also means I become the one responsible to make sure the narcotics don’t slow her breathing so much she doesn’t get enough oxygen.

No pressure there.

We created a chart to help us know when it’s time for the next dose of each. Now if we could studiously record when scheduled meds have actually been taken, that’d be just great.

Regarding my other patient, Delilah’s vomiting continues. We attained a vet appointment for this afternoon. I sure hope it doesn’t result in more prescription medications.

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