A Bittersweet Day, day 37

Today was a bittersweet day because Archie finally got out of ICU after five weeks but he is in a lot of pain.

The day began with Archie sleeping until about 9 am, the nurse did wake him up before that for vitals but he went back to bed at that point. It was humorous this morning because Archie did not remember that he had surgery yesterday he asked the nurse "what time is surgery today" and we got to remind him that it was done yesterday. The doctor came pretty early today, around 10:30 am. He looked at all the surgery sights and uncovered all but the spot on his forehead where his drain (his unicorn horn is what Archie called it) was. The doctor said that we would move to a room today and if everything goes well, we will be able to go home tomorrow or the next day. Archie was having some pretty intense headaches and his stomach was hurting. When asked what in his stomach was hurting he could not really describe what the issue was: surgical site, gas issue due to air getting in there during surgery or just stomach aches. He did get up with the physical therapist and used a walker to walk about 15 feet but he was in serious pain so that was as far as he could go. Archie was really disappointed in himself because he could not go very far and had to use the walker but we reminded him that he had surgery yesterday and that he will be able to go further tomorrow.
Archie got moved around 2:30 pm to a regular room. We were actually kind of sad to be moved out of ICU because we now know 75% of the staff now and they treated us so well. But some of the nurses said that they would stop and check on him in his room. Once he got in his new room he was unable to get comfortable and in a lot of pain. I think 75% of the words coming out of his mouth were cuss words. He wanted a morphine IV shot like he had been getting the past 5 weeks but the doctor put him on an oral pain medication which he was not happy with. I tried to explain to him that he would not be able to get the IV morphine after we leave so we are going to have to start weaning him off of it so that when he goes home he will be able to use the oral meds but what do I know? Archie did ask the nurse to call the doctor because he was in so much pain and the doctor did give him one last morphine shot around 6:30 pm. I think it worked for the time being but I am a little worried about what will happen tomorrow when he cannot get another one but we will cross that bridge when we get there. Thank you for the prayers and please keep them coming.