First ICU Night

Roger's first night in the ICU did not go well. First he had a bad headache and the ICU staff tried hydrocodone, morphine and dilaudid which did not help. The staff had to call the Neurosurgeon on call and he approved a higher dose of dilaudid which finally worked. It turned out it wasn't a headache but pain from his incision. His incision was being pushed on by the bed so they had to try a bunch of different solutions to get his head off the bed but comfortable. He can not lay flat so he is kind of sitting up a little at 30-40 degree angle. Rolled up towels finally worked.

Once he was finally able to be pain free and get comfortable he was able to fall asleep but as soon as he did the pulse machine would go off because his heart rate would get too low. So the ICU staff finally cut that off. Then people were talking outside his room and that woke him up. The staff tried to shut his ICU room door to discover it was off the rails. They finally got that fixed and when he was finally able to go to sleep a dining services person showed up to take his breakfast order. So he only slept really from 4:00-6:00am. He called my room the first time at 6:15am and left a message to bring his ear plugs when we come to visit. He said he couldn't remember the other stuff he needed yet. He called again at 7:55am and I got to talk to him that time and he gave me a list of things to bring him and that he didn't want any visitors when visiting hours started today so he could sleep longer. So we'll be going an hour later than we planned this morning. Thank goodness we're just across the street.