(I'm) Singing in the pain

Quentin's operation went well, yesterday. The tumour was deep in the lung, but they managed to remove it all and off it went to the research unit at Christie's.

Quent seemed on good form at first and managed toast, tea and marmelade very soon after coming out of surgery. But by teatime, his heart rate dropped, as did his SATS (the nurses were impressed by my in-depth knowledge of SATS control!) They did an X-ray and it showed a collapsed lung, due to an air leak along the wound. He already had a drain in to take away the blood, and they have now added another drain for the air, which will stay in for a couple of days while the leak heals.

Interestingly, the air leak would not apparently have caused the drop in heart rate. (But in a way, it's good it dropped because it prompted them to do the X-ray, which revealed the pneumothorax). For the medical amongst you, they've given him atropin. I can't remember why, but it's written in my notes. ;o)

In short, this is a complication, but not an unexpected one and Quentin is still chirpy. When I left him, he was singing - because the nurses had told him that was the best thing to do. Best for him, maybe. I hope the nurses' uniform includes earplugs.