I felt decent overall on Wednesday but then on Wednesday night, I had a lot of stomach cramps all night long and a lot of heartburn and only got bursts of sleep of about an hour at a time. At one point I finally threw up a few times in a row and it was a nice bright green color - pure stomach acid. My abdomen is still draining a lot and that is a annoying to have to deal with all the time. Thursday morning I pointed out once again to the doctors that my left foot/leg was really swollen so they ordered an ultrasound of my leg to check for any blood clots. I also had an x-ray done of my abdomen to check my bowels and make sure that there was nothing that looked amiss since I still haven't had a bowel movement yet.

A vascular surgeon did the ultrasound of my leg and didn't see any clots, but then he went on to tell me why I have all of the swelling. He says that the beds in the hospital are horrible because they encourage people to sleep with their head and knees up. He says that especially when you are not able to be up and walking around a lot that the fluid in your legs doesn't get pushed back up to your core. When you are sleeping you should sleep completely flat with a pillow under your feet. That will allow gravity to help work that fluid out of the legs. A lot of the fluid too is from the fluid retention that I have because of all the fluids that I am being given plus the fluid build-up from the surgery - I look pregnant right now because there is so much fluid built up in my abdomen.

I try to FaceTime my kids most days and it is sad because they just want me to come home and I just want to be home too - the younger ones are having a hard time understanding why I'm still not home.

Overall I had a pretty good day on Thursday. I am still being pumped with a bunch of stuff through my i.v. - mostly antibiotics and electrolytes because my levels got really low. When my husband and daughter were visiting during the day he had me get up every hour to walk around. I ended the day with making 15 laps around the floor. I still haven't had a huge appetite for anything but I did order a few things off the liquid menu to try and was able to drink more of it than I have been up to this point.

The last couple of times I checked on my fluid drainage, it had almost stopped which I am hoping is a permanent thing! I have only been taking Tylenol today for pain.

So then last night I was feeling pretty good and when I was ready for sleep I got my bed into the totally flat position and laid down on my side and was actually able to sleep pretty good! I think I got about 3 1/2 hours until I had to be woken up for some medication and a Lovonox shot (to prevent blood clots) then (after getting up to use the bathroom and no drainage) I was able to sleep for another 1 1/2 hours when I had to be woken up again to be hooked up to antibiotics and labs. I then tried to go back to sleep but felt that my insides were a little unsettled so I got up to use the bathroom again. And this time I actually had a bowel movement (a lot of diahrrea). And there was very little drainage all night. I was going to go back to sleep again but my insides are feeling quite unsettled so I am sitting up waiting for things to work through my system.

So, definitely some steps in the right direction! I actually have a bit of an appetite right now too so maybe I can talk the doctor into allowing me to try food today.

As far as I know the things that are keeping me here in the hospital are bowel movement (which can be checked off now), I need to be able to tolerate solid foods and then the bacteria in my blood - they need to know that that is under control with the i.v. antibiotics until they can switch me to oral antibiotics and allow me to go home.