Okay...so I'm coming in on this "party" as a last minute observer...so I'm just giving the report as I see it. After talking to Curt about his concerns about Mom's downhill turn and how badly she looked, I was making my trip to Utah with tears in my eyes, thinking Mom was all but dead and gone. He's seen her since she went in, and I can tell you, hospitals will do that to people. When you don't get up and move around and they start pumping you with meds and needles, etc, it kinds takes the whoomp out of you. So when I walked into Mom's room at 8:00 tonight, I expected to see her wan and pale on her bed...looking like Glenora or Bob Franklin or even Dad...I guess it's all about perspective...
So I was pleasantly surprised to see Mom up in a chair (albeit with wires all over her) and jovially talking to Rosey, (way to lift her spirits, Rosey) joking around with her and the respiratory therapists...and later with her night male nurse. Her speech was a little slurred the more tired she got, and she was pretty tired by the time I left at 9:15 tonight...but she had had a bad night's sleep the night before, so she needed the rest. Hopefully tonight she will get one.
Rosey said that a Dr. Affleck (he said Ben was his ugly older brother) came in around 6:30. He is part of the Dr. Thorne team, and basically just introduced himself. He did not know about the angiogram or about the anticipated/dreaded heart valve surgery. He said he'd have to get the results from Dr. Kenwood's office, consult with Dr. Thorne and get back with her. Mom also said that her white blood cell count was lower than yesterday. The male nurse that came in tonight (his name was Shaine) looked up her chest x-ray for today and said it also looked better than yesterday's x-ray. She was coughing up some phlegm while I was there but I didn't notice that much blood...maybe it's clearing out.
She said she'd been nauseous today, but that could well have been from the erithromycin, which is the antibiotic. The nurse concurred with me that if you were to take this antibiotic as a pill (not intervenous like Mom is), you would have to take it with food or it would make you nauseous. So that is probably what has caused her to be more nauseous. She didn't eat much lunch and didn't have any dinner because of it. I told her that if she doesn't eat, she will lose her strength. Shaine also added that if she doesn't get a good night rest, she will also lose her strength. So she was more determined to eat more and get more rest. I had brought a mandarin orange with me, so I peeled it and gave it to her (it's on her cardiac diet, which is low salt). Shaine asked if there was something she really wanted to eat, and she said she'd really like a piece of cake. He told her he didn't think there was any of that around, but he did say there was a pumpkin pie that a staff member had brought in, and he would get her a piece of that. She never ate it, though, because by the time I left, she was back in bed and already asleep. Hopefully she will crash and sleep all night!
I'm going to try to go in as close to 8:00 as I can tomorrow morning, and hopefully they will let me sit in the room all day, which I plan to do. Hopefully I will get a chance to talk to doctors as well.
Well, off to bed. Love you all!
Jill
You should be able to call her, as she has her cell phone. Be careful not to talk for long periods of time, though, because there really aren't supposed to be cell phones in ICU at all. Haven't checked email yet, because I'm not sure if I'm able to stay in the room or not. She still is in ICU and their visiting hours are for 30 minutes every even hour. However, I went in last night at 8:00 and stayed until she got into bed at 9:30. Rosey snuck in at 6:00 and stayed until 9:15, so I'm hoping there is a way to stay in there if I let her rest as much as possible and don't make a nuisance of myself. There is, however, no chair in there besides the one Mom stays in, so it's not real comfortable to be in there for long periods of time. I'm going to work on getting an extra chair to stay in there...
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