4W is Where All the Cool Kids Go

4W is where transplanted patients, LVAD patients, and total artificial heart patients go after their ICU stay. Carlos made it up here yesterday afternoon. He actually had transfer orders on Wednesday but there were no beds available up here. So we are on the fourth floor and we have natural light. We have ventured forth from the cocoon know as the bat cave. Woohoo! Yesterday was fairly uneventful, mainly getting him settled in.

Today, more PT/OT this morning. He walked out to the elevators after doing two laps around the nurses station. Then he caught a ride back in the wheelchair. He was pretty done for. He did get to unhook and hook himself up to the batteries, which was cool in a surreal kind of way.

This afternoon he got into some out of control pain. He has been taking two percocet every 6 hours and he's barely been making it. They are stingy with the meds! They got an order for morphine which didn't touch it so then the physician's assistant came and checked him out. He basically said you're fine , we'll fix the pain meds to cover your pain a bit better. So they gave him dilaudid and changed his percocet to just oxycodone and he can have it every three hours. The pleural effusion is improving at least.

We had our first session of training with the VAD lady, Eva. She mainly went over the warnings and precautions. She reviewed also how this process would go while in the hospital as well as discharge home. We found out that Carlos can't be alone for the first 3-4 weeks. Ugh. I'll have to take more time than I thought from work to carry him back and forth and be up his butt 24/7. Lovely. But actually, I have to tell the truth...I've missed him so much that my heart aches at night....so I'm thrilled to be with him like that :-)

Monday morning, he heads to the gym :-)