Last night was so scary :-(

It started off good. At 8.30pm last night (ie, Sunday 22nd Mar) the little trainee nurse (Marina) did an EXCELLENT job of changing the dressing in the huge cavity left where the bed sore used to be. When Husband turned onto his back, he felt a lot more comfortable and there was a lot less pain. Then the scary stuff started.

He had been feeling queasy and uncomfortable in the stomach since the day before and it had been building up. Then, at 9pm Sunday night, what felt like diarrhoea started up, but it was BLOOD. Not a lot at that time, but very scary to see that! Marina helped me to clean up, re-dress the outer dressing on the sore (as some of the blood got onto that), and I called the surgeon, and he said it should be OK, it is probably just old blood flushing out from his system as it gets used to 'being used again', and that it should taper off.

OK, we settled in for the night.. then at 3.15am, Husband said he could no longer hold things in... at which point I told him he SHOULD NOT, he should just let things go, to clear his system out. So, he did. Oh MAN, that was so frightening. There was SO MUCH BLOOD.. very thick and gooey but it was still fresh blood(!) and it seemed like every time we thought it had stopped, after a few minutes, it would start again. I think neither Husband nor I have ever been so scared in all our lives. The nurses were wonderful. They were there immediately I pressed the buzzer, they took over the cleaning and watching over him. They called the M.O. He turned up pretty fast, checked what was happening. Said it was fresh blood - not 'old' blood - and called the surgeon. He then examined Husband's insides to see if he could identify where the bleeding was coming from, and he said it was definitely coming from 'higher up', he could see a trickle (not a flood) of blood, and the reason there seemed to be so much was that Husband had been trying to hold everything in since 9pm!! The 'flooding out' stopped around 4.30pm pretty much. On the surgeon's instructions they gave Husband an injection to stop the bleeding (it was something that would 'thicken' the blood so he would not bleed so easily), cleaned him up thoroughly, changed the outer dressing of the wound over the sore again, then carted him off to ICU to keep him under observation - ie, they wanted to connect him to all those machines that track blood pressure, pulse, etc. I have to say that even till then, his pressure, pulse, blood oxygen saturation level, were all still excellent!!

So, they took him off around 5am to ICU. I packed up all our stuff in the room, called home to let them know to take the latch off the door or I would not be able to get into the house, and drove home.

At 9.15am today (ie, Monday 23rd March) the surgeon called. He had already seen Husband, who was sleeping quite comfortably. There had only been one more episode of the bleeding, and that very little, and nothing since then. He explained that he thought that it was due to all the mobility that had happened to Husband the last two days - having the 2nd op; going for the dressing change and turning onto his side so often for that; the blood thinner (to prevent any recurrence of a mini-stroke); and possibly a blood clot that would have been on the colon wound (where the original op had taken place) and (with all the movement) that clot could have given way and the blood thinner would have exacerbated the flow of blood and caused that 'trickle' that the M.O. had seen earlier. Since he had the blood 'thickener' injected, the flow seemed to have stopped....

So, they are keeping him in ICU today, possibly till noon tomorrow, to be sure that it has stopped, and to keep an eye on his vital signs. They will keep him in hospital for a few more days at least, and the surgeon and plastic surgeon will take over the monitoring and changing of the dressing on the bed sore.

It was such a relief to know that the blood flow had stopped, and that Husband was sleeping. I will be seeing him at noon today (visiting hours at ICU are only noon to 2pm, and then another couple of hours in the evening). I have to remember to be strong and not cry in front of Husband. I don't want to upset him any further than he is already!

So, friends, keep your prayers coming, we really do need them at this time. Till next time, stay safe, stay HEALTHY!