A Long Day

My father and I went to Jackson today to see my uncle. My uncle had a stroke several years ago, and between his diabetes and the circulation issues related to the stroke, he lost a leg a few years ago. For the past few months, circulation to his remaining leg had diminished to the point of almost losing this one, too. He had surgery today to restore circulation to his foot, a bypass operation.

When we entered the hospital room, he had only been back from surgery and the recovery room for a few minutes. He was in such pain, and we couldn't find a nurse anywhere to come and give him something for it. Dad finally tracked somebody down and they found that the doctor's orders were for a morphine derivative that my uncle cannot take. It seems that most of my dad's side of the family shares an allergy to morphine that makes them see freaky things if it's given to them.

After figuring out that the meds had to change, they apparently had to beat a pharmacist to death to get him/her to allow out Demerol in substitution, and forty minutes after Dad asked for it, my uncle finally got some relief.

I'm not telling this as a soapbox story. In fact, my current feeling is very mixed. Mostly, I just wish there was some way that I could have taken some of his pain for him. He's had too much of it, and since he lives in a nursing home in the north part of the state, he often deals with it alone. Today, as I helped him arrange and rearrange his covers and looked through the hospital's cable channels for his beloved Discovery Channel, I just wanted to scream at the unfairness of his not even being able to get the shot he needed to relieve the post-surgery pain.

Ultimately, this surgery is supposed to help him keep this leg. The doctor who called us after the surgery (Dad and I had gone to get food) said that he has a strong pulse now, and when we saw his foot only an hour or so after the procedure, there was already a dramatic change in color and size from the last time we saw it on Friday. I have to keep thinking about that. I hope he can. Actually, I take that back. I really hope that they keep bringing him enough medicine so he's out cold and doesn't have to think about anything at all for awhile.