On Pins and Needles

I am sitting outside ICU again this morning...but still holding our luxury suite in 3South. They took Mom down to ICU at 8:00 this morning to do another TEE and shock her heart. But I'm getting ahead of myself...
Yesterday was a great day!! She had lost 5 lb. in water yesterday (4 more lbs. this morning). When Dr. Rich came in around 2:00 yesterday afternoon, he was full of good news. Mom's creatinine had dropped from 4.6 to 4.0. Her BUN was pretty stable. He gave her the good news that he would take out her catheter in the morning and send her home tomorrow (now today). He reduced some of her lasix and started her back up on coumadin last night. He confirmed a doctor appt. that had already been scheduled for her this Thursday (his offices are RIGHT BY MOM'S HOUSE on 106th). Well...about an hour later, while Wendy, Steph and her sister Samantha were visiting, Dr. Elhaddi came in and reported that he had talked to her surgeon, Dr. Karwande and felt it would now be wise to shock her while she's still in the hospital. So they made plans to do that this morning. I asked if she could be shocked and still go home the same day. He said she probably could, but her lungs are still not quite strong enough and she'd probably go home on Sunday if all went well. Then he informed her that they would do another TEE (Trans-esophagial echocardiogram) to make sure there were no blood clots and then they would shock her heart again. When he mentioned the TEE, I panicked. After all, that's what got her on the downslide the first time, prior to her heart valve surgery...they had given her a normal dose of sedation, but with her sensitivity to narcotics, her vital signs had dropped dramatically and they had had to revive and stabilize her before they could continue the procedures. I think he took note, because they brought her down to ICU to do the procedures, whereas they would commonly do it right there in her room. They must be wanting to keep a special eye on her.
So we wait...
Mom was a little nervous going in this morning. I can't imagine why when she's heard how nervous we've been about this. But as she was getting ready to go, she called me over and said, "Jill, I have one more thing to tell you..." I leaned over and said, "what, Mom?" She said.... "Ben, the two of us need look no more..." I responded with, "and Mom, I have something to tell you... 'And they call it Puppy Love...' (This is a HTBT thing...having to do with the first night we had Mom's hospital theater experience when Curt showed us YouTube videos, including Michael Jackson singing "Ben" and Donny Osmond singing "Puppy Love". We've had both those songs on our minds ever since!)
Just for our record, I wanted to mention that we've had 24 hour help for Mom over the past week. I got here to Utah a week ago today on Jan. 1. Starting the night after Mom went into the hospital on December 29, we've had someone spending the nights with Mom. Here is the list of the nights spent with Mom:
Thur. Dec. 30 - Curt
Fri. Dec. 31 - Bruce
Sat. Jan. 1 - Jill
Sun. Jan. 2 - Bret
Mon. Jan. 3 - Jill
Tue. Jan. 4 - Wendy
Wed. Jan. 5 - Jill
Thur. Jan. 6 - Curt
Fri. Jan. 7 - Rosey
Sat. Jan. 8 - Jill
Sun. Jan. 9 - Hopefully Mom will be going home!!
So many others have been filling in through the day! What a great family we have!!! More on the reports later!!