Track #701 Part deux

Paul is resting now. It is 7:40 pm and from my vantage point the sky looks beautiful. The rain came and went. The Kentucky Derby came and went and life goes on. Although one of the poor horses met a very sad ending. I like to believe that here at St Joe's we will only have happy endings. At least we can go forward and believe that things will improve from here.
For Paul, a great thing, his staples are all out now! Rejoice amongst yourselves. He has these little steri strips taped where they were. Looks kind of Native American ritualistic. I like to think that the whole Whipple thing has been a ritual of sorts taking out the bad stuff and healing him.
His temperature is 99ish and his blood pressure has continued to be good. Now if we can manage the pain thing... he will have a shot of delautid please. He is trying to vary the pain meds from the big d to percocet. His pain level hovers at 4 or 5. Everyone familiar with that pain chart and all of the faces???? I really hope that it is due to general healing and nothing worse. They watch him well here. They have to time the pain meds and in about 10 minutes he can have his shot and that will give him 2 hours of relief. I watched as they changed out all of his "medicine bags" on his IV trolley.
Pretty amazing how it all works. Even more so because they will be sending him home with the picc line in to keep getting the fluids/drugs/nourishment he needs. During the day he will be free and untethered. At night he will be hooked up. Hope for his sake that won't have to be for long.
I look at all he has been through so far and it makes me appreciate the amazing machines that we humans are. I hope that it is a lesson to us all.
I think we will all breathe a collective sigh of relief when he returns home for the second time.
The night nurse is here and we love her.
I am here tonight and I pray that he gets some decent sleep. I am really ok with waking up and falling right back to sleep these days.
Love to you all once again today,
Cathy
PS It loved how Paul sounded when he was talking to Ryan on the phone earlier. Pure love, know what I mean?