Late (10:30 pm) Sunday night, Shirley was moved back out of ICU to the General Med floor 6 Southeast where she had been during the prior week. We take this is a good sign that she is no longer deemed sick enough to require the full time attention of an RN just for herself.
But the road to recovery is long and will be slow-going. Today, she met with a speech therapist who is making sure she can swallow correctly after getting nutrition exclusively through the feeding to for over a week. She was also visited by physical and occupational therapists to help her re-learn out to get out of bed without using her arms as she must do for 75 days post-transplant. She also needs to regain her strength, as today was the first day she has stood on her own two feet in almost a week.
The doctors say her lungs continue to do well. They have cultured out a staph infection from her gall bladder, but fortunately it is a strain that responds well to antibiotics. She will continue on another course of antibiotics for eight weeks or more to ensure that the infection that got into her sternum doesn't spread to other bones.
Tomorrow, it's back to the operating room to change her wound vac and check to make sure the incision line continues to heal correctly.
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