Update 1/25/08

Hello,
Lucy and I took Derek’s bed downstairs to pick him up from ICU around 10:00 this morning. He was glad to get back to the room. He said that he was sore. They have been poking him all day with IVs and hanging one bottle of liquid after another. They sent him back up with no pain medicine in his pump. The nurse from ICU said on the way up that she didn’t think it was working for him. She told Lucy that the foreigners don’t handle pain as well as the Chinese. Derek said, “I must be a wimpy American”. The nurse that he had once he got up here couldn’t seem to get the IV in or get the drips to work. After a couple of tries she had to get another nurse to put it in and get it to work. After that bottle was done, she couldn’t get the next one to go through his IV and wanted to keep poking more in his foot and then wanted to try his hand. Derek didn’t want her to touch his hand because it is still swollen and sore from when they missed his vein downstairs. His feet are pretty bruised and swollen from all the IV sticks. So the second time she couldn’t make the IV work, I went and got Lucy . She came in and talked with the nurse. About the same time, a man came in with a pump of pain medicine. Another nurse that we hadn’t seen before came in with Derek’s day nurse. The new nurse found a vein in is foot. She put an IV in that looks more like we have at home Then she covered it with a large clear adhesive bandage to keep it in place. She then put a tube off that that had a T shaped connector to hitch both the pain medicine and the bottles of fluid. We were so grateful for this nurse to come in and do it the correct way. Now they just change the bottles on the tree instead of putting a new IV in every time they hang another bottle. Other than trying to get them to put the IV in correctly, everything else went well. He is eating, drinking a lot of fluids, and watching DVD’s. Thanks for the comments and prayers. We write tomorrow.
Love, Derek, Kathy and Nicole