Damien Update

Aaron and I saw Damien tonight. He had surgery yesterday and has been moved from the ICU to the Trauma Surgery floor, and it's awful there. Each nurse has at least six patients instead of two, and he has a roommate instead of a private room. The whole floor is much more industrialized and less personal, and it takes an hour to get a nurse's attention instead of simply poking your head out the door. The nurses are also different; the ICU nurses were like lovely kind angels. These nurses seem curt, business-like and grumpy. Onto more important things... Damien had surgery on Thursday. They wired his jaw together and banded his mouth shut. They sliced his scalp from ear to ear and peeled his face down to repair the bones around his left eye and clean out his sinuses. They removed the bullet fragments. They pulled his face back up and stitched it shut again, dozens and dozens of thick black knots over a long, thin red slice. Before surgery, he was on morphine for pain. After five days of narcotics, the hallucinations began. Damien was so disturbed that he asked for the morphine to be discontinued, knowing that he would feel a lot more pain. He is currently on Tylenol and Ibuprofen. He is experiencing a lot of physical pain, but seems to be in less mental anguish. He seems relieved to know that in spite of the pain, everything he's seeing and feeling is real. He will need at least one more surgery, to repair his left eye. It is infected and swollen shut, and for now there's too much swelling to assess what his vision in that eye is like. Depending on what the damage is, it's possible the surgeons can repair it. It's also possible he will be blind in his left eye. We won't know for a few more days. It's frustrating to be in the presence of someone in so much anguish and feel so totally useless. I massaged his feet, which were puffy from bed rest, and told him I love him. "I love you too," he mumbled through clenched teeth. I'll go back tomorrow morning. He can swallow a little fluid now, so I'll take him some juice and some chicken stock I made. I'll bring some books to read to him, or I will watch him sleep. Then I will go home and kiss my babies and cook dinner with friends, because I'm not really sure what else to do but I know those things feel good.