dilaudid

We've discovered a new friend.  It's name is Dilaudid.  It's a synthetic morphine, which means it does the good things that morphine does without the bad things that morphine does to our Shawnie. We've never found anything as totally effective without any major side effects.  Today has been hard, but with this dear new friend, it's been do-able.  Shawnie has rested a lot, and only hurts badly when it's time for more meds.  We transitioned from the PICU to the surgical recovery floor late this afternoon after chest xrays and a pretty rough go at putting in a pic line.  After several tries, it's in and tonight through it she's "eating" an IV dinner of vitamins, minerals, lipids, calories, you name it, it's in there. It actually looks like vegetable oil in an IV bag.  But I'm not complaining. They concocted it especially for her and her needs and I'm grateful that she's got it to get her through the next several days of NPO. She's only using a little bit of oxygen, but still has the chest tube draining, a catheter, a draining NG tube, 2 IV ports, the pic line and the stat monitor which makes for a LOT of cords all over the place.  It is always so exciting to see the cords go one by one until we say good-bye to the last one...