Recovery at MD Anderson

Lauri's recovery continues to progress well. We had a hard time with recovery yesterday, leading to us not getting into a room until around 1:15 am this morning. After surgery yesterday, several factors caused Lauri to have to remain in recovery a lot longer than we had hoped.

Lauri has drain lines that allow for fluid to drain from the operation area. The drainage yesterday was more than the Surgeon had planned, but it corrected itself before the Surgeon had to do anything. Simply put, we needed some extra time for Lauri's lung to heal up and stop bleeding. If it didn't slow down, the Surgeon was going to have to go back in to fix the problem. Luckily that wasn't necessary!

Lauri's pain management team also had trouble again with the epidural. The Anesthesiologist (drug dealer for short) described the problem as too much block. The epidural block volume ended up going further than the doctor had intended. Lauri’s left arm ended up going completely numb, and she lost nearly all strength in the arm, meaning she could barely lift it, and could not grasp anything with her left hand. While this is certainly overkill, it wouldn’t have been a big deal had it occurred on the right side, instead of left, where the surgery was done! Basically, the epidural was working too well in the wrong place. The doctor pulled the epidural back out a little bit, and reduced the basal rate (steady rate) of the medication pump. Reducing the rate reduced the volume of medication. The solution worked, Lauri is now much more comfortable, and has regained use of her left arm.

The above issues were resolved by around 8:40 pm, with the Surgery team signing the release paperwork for Lauri to move to an inpatient room. However, by the time all the paperwork was in place (about 10:00pm), the room was assigned to someone else! The entire hospital is filled to capacity here, so finding another room was a challenge for the team here. We were instead moved to a temporary room to wait until this afternoon when we are supposed to go to our normal inpatient specialist floor, specializing in lung surgery patients. We just got news that the room is ready and we should be heading that way.

Lauri did a great job with all the issues yesterday. These things take time, and full hospitals don’t make it any easier. Lauri is doing very well, beginning to eat more and get energy back. Thanks for all the well wishes, and we will keep you posted as we go!