Getting Ready to Go

We had a very pleasant surprise on two fronts today.  Dr. Chavez, the Resident from the Rehab Unit mentioned that she had been consulting with "Dr. Ryan" from General Surgery about the drain tube in Shirley's gall bladder. He was going to be stopping by for a consult later in the morning.  Shortly after that, a familiar face dropped by--Ryan being the original Resident from the Thoracic Team that had worked with Shirley back in March.  He had rotated on to General Surgery and was now going to be looking after Shirley again for another body part.

The second piece of good new was that he told us that the study they had done next week showed no abnormalities with her gall bladder and that it would not need to be removed.  Further, he capped off the drain and removed the "bile bag" that Shirley has had to tow around for the past two months.  The drain tube is still in but if she doesn't show any issues by next Wednesday, they'll remove the tube!  

On the flip side, we were informed today that when we go "home" there is an expectation that Shirley or I will be responsible for doing the dressing change on a hole in her chest that is no longer under the wound vac (the vac is still over a portion of her incision, but this is a hole they needed to make to remove an infected portion of her sternum.  I'm not sure why this surprised us both so much--I did the dressing changes the first time she went home--but this caught us both off guard.  Perhaps this is a hole that needs to be "packed" with saline-saturated strips of gauze.  I've watched/assisted the nurse change it each time since they switched to this type of dressing.  After thinking about it, I know I can do it, it requires a fair bit of coordination but I'll give it a shot. However, I have a business trip the second week she is home and we'll have to make other arrangements. Based upon the position of the hole, it's really impractical to self-change.