One is a lonely number

As of this afternoon, there is just one lonely chest tube remaining! It took a while for Greg to get used to feeling pressure inside of his chest again now that the right side has no chest tubes at all, but once he did, he was feeling great! Hopefully after the last chest tube is removed tomorrow, he will have more stamina to get things done. Unfortunately, I have had to push as little more than I would have liked but things are progressing well.Greg is still in a good amount of pain and sore - rightfully so after everything he has been through. So, today I needed to be a little more of a coach (or drill sergeant) to get him motivated to do some things. Of course, I never push him to do anything that would hurt him but sometimes we all need a little motivation, right? How much fun could it really be for someone to tell you to do stretches when you are uncomfortable?? We did work on finding the right dosage of pain medication and besides a slight constipation effects, the pain meds are working well. So, now that the pain is under control (and the side effect remedied), once the chest tube is out tomorrow, we are going to be working a little harder - together!Otherwise though, today was nothing out of the ordinary. It is difficult though to some that Greg is not progressing as fast as he did in the beginning. I have tried to convey the amount of extensive damage that his body has gone through and how, now that the "hard" part is over, it is going to be a long and steady healing process from here on in. We just have to take it one day at a time - no one said the man would be able to run marathons by the time he left the hospital.Oh! One thing that I did forget to mention. It may not make sense to some but to those that have clubbed fingers or toes (http://www.listermedicalcentre.com/clubbing.htm) but, the skin around the fingertips has gotten softer and moves now. On top of that, the clubbing has already started to recede as my mother-in-law and I noticed that you can see where his fingernails used to embed into the fingertip and now do not. It is difficult to explain but the clubbing has already started to go away after just 1 week. Wow! Who knows what week 2 will bring! (smile)