I knew that Jay was going to be moved out of the Cardiac Surgery Intensive Care Unit at around 10:00 this morning. I called to say 'hello' at around 8:30 AM when he was still eating breakfast. I knew the trip to the Cardiac Step-down Unit would take a bit of time, so I called ahead and found out what room he'd be in.I got there at around 11:15 and he was looking pretty tired still. Last night I saw him responsive but he was a bit too drugged to carry on much of a conversation. In fact, this morning he asked me, "Did you feed me yogurt last night or was it a dream?" I had done so, actually. RN Janet had started giving him her own and she handed it over to me for a few spoonfuls.
Jay said he did not get a lot of sleep last night as the SCICU is pretty busy and they have to constantly monitor patients. Today, he looked pretty sluggish too, at first. Finally, when lunch came around at 12:30, he convinced himself that he really should get out of the bed. Previously he'd turned down staff offers for a walk saying he was too dizzy. I guess they did give him some plasma today although he didn't use any during yesterday's procedures. He's not a big guy, and I guess smaller people contain less blood. So when some is lost, it has a larger impact.
He had to be helped to the chair but ate lunch under his own steam. It's good to get a lot of food into the body to get everything back to normal. The fasting prior to surgery sort of messes things up a bit. Also, what a lot of trama to his body, from healing a broken collarbone to all those incisions on legs and chest! The catheter is still in today so they can measure his fluid output. As he finished eating, it was almost one o'clock. That ward has quiet time between 1:00 and 3:00 PM. That is really the only main rest time. I came home for my own lunch.
I'm going back to arrive at his dinner time at 5:30.