PCA Morphine Drip

Friday October 11, 1991

Slept very well from 10-7 with the help of my PCA morphine. I am up cleaning up and brushing my teeth by 7:15. Feeling pretty good. I am ready to eat but still not approved by my doctor. No doctor by 11 a.m. so my nurse calls him to ask when I can eat. He says as long as I have passed gas I can have a liquid lunch. My nurse tells a fib and he approves a liquid lunch. I promise to pass gas before lunch. I can feel the rumbling now.

I am so excited to receive my first meal of clear broth, juice and jello. It tastes wonderful and sits well with my tummy. Dr. Beinstock finally arrives about 4 p.m. He says I'm doing so well I can go home tomorrow. I thought I had to have several meals before he'd release me. He says I can have a regular dinner and breakfast tomorrow, then go home.

Bea and I slept very well tonight.

PCA morphine is the acronym for Patient Controlled Analgesia, as pictured above. Mom had a morphine drip at the end of her life and it gave her a great deal of pain relief, although she didn't like the way the morphine knocked her out. When we visited her in the hospital, she would tell us she was going to give herself some morphine, that she could still hear us in her stupor even though she would not be able to talk with us, so to please continue to visit with each other.

After 5 days in the hospital, and 4 different roommates she saw come and go, she must have been very anxious to go home after her hysterectomy.

On a personal note, my husband Ric and I are leaving for Hawaii in a few days and today I was packing some clothes for our trip. The last time we went to Hawaii, and the last time on a plane, was the trip with Mom and Frank in May 1991. Mom loved to shop and she left behind several boxes loaded with clothes. I was looking through some of those clothes today for "tropical" clothing, and recognized some of the clothes from our trip in 1991. I was overcome with grief and sadness, thinking of her, and shed a few tears. I will be thinking of her on our trip. I love you, Mom.

Pre-Op Appointment Today

Friday October 4, 1991

I didn't sleep from 2:30-4:45 a.m. last night so sleep in til 9 a.m. I still don't feel rested. Maybe I'm depressed. I have my pre-op appointments today at 3 p.m. at Kaiser. I am concerned about the Lemona house but last night I couldn't stop thinking about the house we saw for Gary.

I accomplish little other than getting ready to go to Kaiser. I feel fine by then. A shower does wonders. We talk at great length with my surgeon, Dr. Bienstock. He is a 35-40 year old small Jewish man. Not bad looking, not good. His manner is polite and unrushed. I tell him I'm praying for him to have a steady, accurate hand and mind for my surgery. He tells me he has been operating 5 years and has done 4 ovarian cancer surgeries this week. When I ask how those patients are doing, he replies "Not as well as you. I removed their cancers and female organs." Dr. Bienstock says he will remove my appendix and take many biopsies while I'm on the table. We decide that morphine would probably be best as I had dry heaves with Demerol years ago.

Next we spend time with the surgery nurses going over the procedures for Monday where to check in and where they will take me and everything that will happen. We meet with the anesthesiologist. He's a nice young man but not the one who will assist on Monday. He agrees we should try morphine. Next I go to the lab to have some more blood work.

Today the doctor said I could need as much as 4 pints of blood. That's not what he said a few weeks ago. Had we known we could have asked Paul and Phil (Frank's sons) to donate. I will pray that I don't need any and that the blood Frank and Gary donated will help someone else. I signed many forms and received lots of information and booklets. We feel well informed.

We go out for Mexican food and margaritas. Later I feel ill and go to bed early.

I am completely touched. Mom is about to undergo a hysterectomy and she is losing sleep, not over worry for her health, but over the house for her son. I think in the back of her mind though she is experiencing anxiety over her surgery. She mentions being depressed and she felt ill after eating dinner.