Saturday 2/28
The Road to Recovery. Day 40
The rollercoaster continues. Physical therapy continues to go well. We now have two therapy sessions a day and Karen just keeps moving along.
After our trip through psychedelic CO2 world and the 60s and 70s on Tuesday, Karen had a bronchoscopy downstairs to see how her lungs were looking inside. Her Dr was hearing a rattle on Karen's left side and Karen was still complaining about having shortness of breath, so he wanted to check it out. The Dr told me I could stay in and watch as long as I wasn't squeamish. It was incredible to see the anatomy of Karen's new lungs again. The Dr was very happy with what he saw. He said the lungs looked incredible. They also took 7 biopsies of different sections of her lungs.
The next day, results were very positive about her bronchoscopy and the biopsies. Everything was normal and looked great although the Dr had no answers as to why Karen continues to complain about shortness of breath.
Thursday they did a breathing study and found out her diaphragm on her left side isn't working properly. It's not letting Karen fully inflate her lung on the left side. They also found out that she's getting too much CO2 into into her bloodstream. It could be that the CO2 isn't be pushed out of her lung on the left side, so it just sits there and gets absorbed into her bloodstream. So they have to cut back again on her ween from the ventilator. She's off of the ventilator during the day, but needs to be back on it during the night time. They also found out she has an infection that they are doubling the antibiotic on to get that under control quickly.
The speech therapist came in and brought a voice piece that goes onto the end of her trache tube that then forces air upward causing her vocal chords to vibrate and walla, we have verbal communication Houston. (Sorry) Karen looked the best she has in a while. Definitely more with it and coherent..
Thursday night we celebrated Karen's Birthday for the second year in a row in the hospital. One of Karen's best friends Suzanne Meldrum and her daughter Cassie started the celebration. Then Karen's mom and dad, her brother Brian and his wife Christy took part in celebration #2. Then Morgan, Patrick, Kiersten, and I, along with our very good friend Judy Mundle took care of celebration #3. My sister Robyn, surprised Karen with two dozen of the biggest and ripest chocolate covered strawberries that everyone thoroughly enjoyed.
Friday the nurse pulled out her feeding tube with the idea of starving Karen enough to heighten her appetite forcing her to eat. Karen was looking better than she had in weeks. Later Friday, I left to pick Kiersten up because we were given tickets to Frozen, Disney on Ice, by a very thoughtful family from Kiersten's school. We had a very good time, however Karen had some difficulty at the hospital. My sister Patty offered to stay with Katen Friday night so Kiersten, Patrick, and I could go to Disney on Ice. Well during the night the alarms on the ventilator started going off. Karen's sats plummered so the nurse came in to check things out. They wound up replacing the ventilator thinking it was defected. The second one started going off as well and this time 4 nurses and a doctor came in and worked with Karen to bring her heart beat down from 190. They did an EKG and it showed Karen in A fib again just like 3 wks ago. They were able to get her back into sinus rhythm again and found out the medicine that they were giving her to keep her heart in sinus rhythm was now putting her into A fib. The levels of the medicine in Karen's body had risen causing her to go into A fib. Everything finally calmed down and she rested.
Saturday, she was pretty wiped out so she rested most of the day. I had promised Kiersten a sleepover 3wks ago with one of her best friends so I was going to have to leave her by herself for the first time in 6wks and it was killing me, but with the weather I was not going to ask anyone to come down and stay with Karen. The weather was getting bad so we had to leave about 5pm. I felt horrible leaving her because I could see she was a little bothered. I checked with her nurse throughout the night and he told me Karen slept just about the whole time. Still not eating. I use to really like rollercoasters. Right now I think they really suck.
As always I can't say it enough. Thank you so much for all of your support. Please keep Karen in your thoughts and prayers.
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