Pain Pump

10 AM

Pam's mouth and throat continue to give her a lot of pain.  She is now using a self administered "pain pump", so she can give herself a little dose of morphine by pushing a button. This is pretty common for pain management these days.  It is more effective than waiting for a nurse to administer medication, and, interestingly, people tend to use less narcotic medication this way.  (By the way, you can't overdose yourself... the pump will only allow a certain maximum amount of medication for every push of the button, and only so much medication in a certain amount of time.)

She is only on oxygen when sleeping, but she has a little more jaundice today.  Her physicians are aware of it, but I will make sure to ask Dr. Morich about this when he makes his rounds this morning.

She is really looking forward to visiting with her good friends Matt and Patti on Friday, but right now, she is sleeping.  Just as I typed this, she opened her eyes and pushed her "pain button". 

I stayed home a little longer this morning and picked up after myself... turns out that I can be quite a slob when living alone.

Son Nate is coming up from Eugene to visit and daughter Alyssa is going to be in this afternoon.  I am going to go into work for a little bit this afternoon. Parents Don and Bonnie will be stopping by late in the afternooon.

I am going to make an appearance at work this afternoon when Alyssa is here in the hospital.  I will probably go to one meeting, answer some questions, and get out of there as quickly as possible.

Pam has been meaning to send a thank you note to her primary care doctor who caught this in the first place.  She just called and I told her how grateful Pam is that she took the time to listen and got the blood count done which lead to the diagnosis.

So it goes...