IMC Update 3

So this morning started off pretty traumatic. Sean woke up with severe nausea and vomiting around 12:30 am and then again at 4:30 am. After the 4:30 am incident, the nurse decided to call the doctor because of the vomiting. The doctor came in and talked to us and decided that Sean needed to have his NG tube put back in. This decision alone was enough to ruin the rest of Sean's day. To make matters worse, though, the first attempt at the placement of the new tube failed. It ended up looping over itself in the back of his throat and coming out of his mouth. He, of course, was gagging and vomiting and it made his nose and stomach bleed a little bit. The nurse decided to get another nurse to try to give us peace of mind I suppose, and the second attempt wasn't much better. The nurse was able to get the tube into his stomach but the suction wasn't bringing up any bile and so they knew it wasn't placed in the correct position. As she was repositioning the tube, it again, wound up looped in the back of his throat. He and I had both had enough of that (and of course the nurses felt terrible that he had to go through all of that, even though it wasn't their fault for the misplacements) and told the doctors about what was going on. They decided that they'd wait a few more hours and see how Sean was holding up with his nausea and vomiting and that if they were going to need to place the tube, they'd take him to the radiology department and sedate him in order to get the tube back in.

Sean improved over the course of the day though and hasn't ended up needing the tube placed yet. He has been able to control things for the rest of the day with medication and has even been able to get out of bed and walk around and shower. He's been able to keep some clear liquids down as well and so hopefully the set-backs we had this morning won't have too much of an impact on when he is discharged. We're hoping to be out of the hospital by the weekend, if everything goes smoothly from here on out.

Karen