Yea for sleep and doctors!

What a difference a good night's sleep makes! If it doesn't help the health, at least it helps the psyche. We'd been prepping our night nurses that Mom needed to SLEEP, as she hadn't gotten more than about an hour's sleep at one time the night before. We said, "PLEASE coordinate your room visits so that she can get some sleep!!" Well, they were very good. Mom also took a benadryl to help her sleep (like she always used to do at home), and she got several good long bouts of sleep along with one stint that lasted maybe 3 1/2 hours. Of course, the benadryl may have slowed down her heart functions because they did have to come in in the middle of the night to turn her air up to 9 ltrs. SAD! She definitely does much better on the air when she's upright than when she's lying down.
Yesterday was a good day. Mom was up in chairs most of the day. Stephanie was so good to stay with her the night before. I got Mom's Christmas cards off and then got to the hospital around 10:30. Dr. Elhaddi had already come, so Steph gave us the report. Mom, of course, wanted to go home tomorrow. Dr. Elhaddi told her, though, "first time, shame on you. second time, shame on me." He told her she's about 1/3 of the way closer to where he will let her go home, but her lungs still aren't clearing up like he'd like, even though she's lost about 20 lb. of fluid over the past 6 weeks.
Bret, Wendy, Bruce and Jeannie came over to visit after Steph left. We also watched a crazy movie called "Ghost town". That was enough to put anybody to sleep. Hopefully today will be a better day.
Flash: Dr. Elhaddi came by, so you can get the latest report. Mom's kidneys are experiencing the effects of the lasix booster, and her creatinine has gone up some from 2.2 to 2.5. Her BUN has gone from 63 to 67. So the doc is going to reduce her lasix booster, zaroxolyn from 2 to 1 dose per day. Her digoxin (helps reduce her heart rate) is working well, so she's going to continue that...
We talked about a possible move to rehab after the hospital, and he felt more comfortable about letting her leave sooner if she goes to rehab. However, he still wants to get her oxygen needs down to 3 or 4 ltrs and not the 7-9 ltrs that she's on right now. He did a little test on her oxygen to see how she could hold her air. Her oxygen saturation dropped about 20% within a minute. Scary for her and for us...now you can see why he's not letting her go home yet!!
I asked him what she could do to get her oxygen needs down and asked why they haven't given her a spirometer here in IMC. He said that was a very good question and within a few minutes, Oscar, the PT (who was listening in), had a spirometer in Mom's hands. Now to make sure she uses it more effectively and gets more exercise.
Well, I'm sure you all wanted to get all those gory details, but there you have it. When nothing else is going on in Rm. 311, any little news becomes big news, huh?
Mom keeps thinking this hospital nightmare will go away and she will wake up to find out that she's back at home the way life used to be. Well, as she always says, "We do hard things". Well, off to lunch!!