I got to the hospital in time to talk to the overnight staff. For the most part, Shirley had a restful evening, as they went from giving her Versed injections when she started to wake up, to infused doses so that she is consistently sedated.
They did a CT scan of both her chest and gut overnight. The suspicion was that the primary infection may be coming from the area of her gall bladder surgery. They did find a pocket of fluid in that area that had them discussing putting in a drain tube this morning, but by later in the day that had been ruled out for now as having more risk than benefit at this point.
The scan of her chest suggested there may be infection in both of her lungs and they were talking this morning of this being the potential primary infection source. Because of this, they have backed off on the pressure on the ventilator so as to not cause any damage. They have also been able to continue to ratchet down the percentage of oxygen in the vent, going from 100% yesterday when she first reached ICU to now 50% with goal of reaching 30%.
The doctor I spoke to this morning says the condition of her lungs is a little worse today than yesterday, but this is to be expected with the normal curve for what is has. He also reported that beyond that, things were doing quite well. They have been able to reduce the amount of the drug they are using to help maintain her blood pressure ("Levo").
They givie her a unit of blood because her hematocrit levels were low.
I was invited to participate in the morning rounds with her medical team--a group of about 10 people. While perhaps it was because on her previous floor they rounded before I normally got to the hospital, I was very pleased to be able to hear first-hand the report from the various team members. I was also a little pleased with myself that I was able to understand about 70% of what they were saying. :) They were very gracious and asked me if I had any questions.
Shirley had an echocardiogram later in the morning and it showed that her heart looked relatively healthy (that's all the technician would commit to until the reports were examined by a doctor.
Today has been all about letting the medications do their thing and Shirley getting rest and the strength she needs to fight this. No one is committing to a time table, but it sounds like she'll be kept on the ventilator (and hence sedated) for another couple of days.
Tomorrow, they will place a PICC line in her neck, which is a longer term option and more preferred to the arterial line currently in her groin.
2 comments:
Greg, thank you for the time you take to update this blog. On days like today I must check this thing about 40 times. We appreciate everything you do. All our love to you both, Annie
Ditto to what Annie said. Greg this is quite an extraordinary effort on your part to keep all of us updated.
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