Jenny finally has had her permanent drain 'installed'. This time it all went off without a hitch. We got her there at 8:30, then up to the room (in a regular ward). They started an IV there and got her ready, then a porter took her to the angio area, where she would have the procedure. The porter allowed Rob and I go down with her, so when they took her into the room where it would be done, Rob and I parked ourselves on two chairs immediately by the door.
Eventually she was wheeled out of there as chipper as could be. Turns out she did not even have IV sedation - only a local anaesthetic. So once Rob and I knew that she was OK, we left the hospital for a few hours, knowing that Jenny would be draining and sleeping..
We returned at 3:10 to find her with a cold washcloth on her forehead and looking pretty unwell. She had been upchucking quite a lot, and her abdomen and the drain site were uncomfortable. They gave her an anti-nausea drug via the IV and a shot of morphine. To quote the nurse, "she had a rough couple of hours". We got there about 30 minutes after these drugs had been given to her.
We left after awhile to go home. Linda Schmidt came in (to the house) as planned after working three weeks in Burns Lake She is on her way home to Denman Island. We three had dinner, then went back to the hospital just after 7 PM to pick her up. She was still a bit groggy from the morphine, but we did manage to get her dressed and into the car. On the way home she had another upchuck, but fortunately we had a ziplock bag in the car.
She is now in bed sleeping soundly.
Tomorrow the home nursing people will be calling us, so I am looking forward to having them visit and I hope that is soon. I will need to be trained with respect to this thing, as it seems as though we will be able to do the drains ourselves. That part remains to be seen at this point.
Right now she is not in pain, and reports being comfortable.
Rob took a couple of photos at the hospital today, but does not seem to have a cable to get them to the computer. If and when we figure it out, I will post them on the blog.
