Rays of Hope

You wouldn’t think that there would be any rays of hope after Mom’s (and Bruce’s) terrible night last night. But it is Sunday, and that is always a bright shining ray of light. I got here around 7:30 AM so that Bruce could leave to take care of his church responsibilities. That meant I could be here when Mom was taken off to get her chest x-ray and then to talk to the weekend cardiologist, Dr. Massinople. He gave us some rays of hope. Her chest x-ray looks better, although there are still pockets of fluid in her lungs, and still some pulmonary edema. Her creatinine has remained stable for the past couple of days at 2.6. Her BUN has gone up to 87, but he said that only indicated that her kidneys were getting dried out, as they should. So I guess that’s good...? He also said her lungs sounded better. Her weight was stable and that’s a good indication factor for congestive heart failure patients. Soo...a ray of hope when he actually said that he would look at helping her get her meds straightened out, and that she might possibly go to rehab, a temporary stay at a skilled nursing center, or to home later this week, if all goes well. Personally, I will be MUCH MORE cautious about her coming directly home, but he’s put orders for a case worker to come talk to Mom and us tomorrow...so we’ll see what their recommendations are. We’ve already been checking out different facilities.
In the meantime, this ray of hope was what we’ve been looking for to raise Mom’s spirits. She’s done her spirometer much more today, and even blew her nose, getting out a clot of something (too gory for this blog) from her nose, which could also have blocked her oxygen intake. She’s put TED hose back on again, and maybe, because of all this, we were elated that her oxygen needs were keeping her saturation levels in the 90's at 3 liters. YEA!! It’s been consistently in the 5-7 liter range, so this is HUGE!!
The Sabbath day is always a nice day, even in the hospital...especially in Utah. Since we put on her admittance form that Mom’s religious affiliation is LDS, we’ve had a representative from the LDS church come visit her every day (I know it’s their calling, but it’s been so nice to get the visitors). Today, 3 senior couples came in and administered the sacrament to Mom and I. They asked if they could read the first verse of the song, “I Stand All Amazed” before the sacrament, and I insisted that Mom and I join in singing it, because we’d coincidentally been singing that very song just this morning. Tears flowed freely all around as we partook of that special ordinance and the Spirit was so strong. We wanted to follow it up with a talk (maybe Bret’s draft of his Ward Conference talk that he was going to give this morning), but all the nurses, PT, OT, housekeepers, etc. kept coming in and out of the room (except during the sacrament time), so we had to wait for 30-45 minutes for everyone to finish their responsibilities before we could read a Conference talk from Elder Anderson. That was a special, special experience!!
We also got visits from lots of family today...visiting grandkids were: our newly engaged couple, Ben & Brittany, Tanner, Dallin, and Remington, Chelsea, Rosey, Janey (& friend, Warner), and Max, as well as Steph, Bruce, Bret & Wendy, Curt and Liz, who will be spending the night with Mom. So it was a busy, busy day, filled with many rays of hope!!