A good day for Nana

Nana had a good day today.  Laura spoke with her this morning, and she'd lost 15 pounds of fluid!  This is very good news, as her body will now have an easier time recovering.

Laura spent the afternoon with Nana.  One of Nana's friends was there visiting when Laura arrived.  Nana was a little bit sleepy, but nothing like yesterday.

The dialysis machine & operator

The hospital staff also performed another dialysis session this afternoon, and got another 3.5 liters (about a gallon) of fluid off of her.  Nana took a nap towards the end of the dialysis session, so it was Laura, Nana, Nana's friend and the dialysis machine operator in the room for several hours -- a full house in that small ICU room.

She's doing well enough that they're moving her out of the ICU into a PCU room sometime tonight.

Recovery Day

Nana had a good day today.  Laura found out that the dialysis they did last night got three liters of fluid off of her.  There's still plenty of fluid left, and they'll be performing another dialysis on her tomorrow.  One of the things they need to do is fix the electrolytes.  Laura was trying to find out if it was too high or too low, but it's something they need to keep an eye on while doing her dialysis.

Nana's breathing was much easier today, but her blood pressure is still low.  We went to visit her around 3:30 this afternoon.  Since only two people can visit at any one time in the ICU, Laura and our youngest son went in first.  I waited in a nearby waiting room with our other son.  We were in there for 30 minutes or so when Laura came out, and we went in.

Nana was awake when we went in, but fell asleep seemingly mid sentence.  She woke up a few minutes later, and apologized for falling asleep.  We spoke a little more, and then she was out like a light.  After we left, Nana was telling Laura that she's very tired of being in the hospital.

Nana's monitor in the ICU

The graphic here is a cell-phone photo of Nana's monitor.  The number in green is her pulse, the number in light blue is oxygen, and the number in white is breaths per minute.  Her blood pressure is at the bottom left with her pulse in ( ).  Laura says that the 107 is pretty good for her, but the 57 is low.

Another rough day for Nana

After a bad night and having a breathing tube installed and removed, Nana had a pretty rough day.  Let's see...she had some visitors, which is a good thing.  Our pastor stopped by for a visit, as well as some of her friends.  Nana was in and out of sleep today, and it seemed that she was waking up with fresh memories of her dream as she would say things like she was falling out of the chair, or that the cough drop was on the bed.

She had a PICC line installed this afternoon.  It's a lot more invasive than a port, but it should make it easier for the nurses to draw blood or administer needed drugs without having to jab her with another needle.

Laura said that the high doses of diuretic that she'd been given wasn't getting the extra fluids off of her like they should.  Nana's kidneys aren't getting enough blood to remove the fluid.  Nana decided that she wanted to go through dialysis to help her kidneys out.  When Laura left tonight, they had come to install the catheters to hook Nana up to the dialysis machine.  They did start the dialysis sometime tonight.  Aunt D was there and stayed with Nana until 10:45pm.  She said that Nana was doing okay with the dialysis and that it didn't hurt her.

Laura came home just before 7pm, and pretty much crashed.  She'd been at the hospital with Nana since around 10am.  Hopefully tonight will be better and tomorrow will be better still.

Bad day in the hospital...

Nana had a bad day in the hospital today...  When Laura went over to visit her this afternoon, she found out that Nana's swelling had gone down a little bit.  Nana went to sit up, and move her legs to sit on the side of her bed.  When she did this, she stopped and was having difficulty.  Laura said that Nana's heart rate dropped to 40, and she started having a very hard time breathing.

They summoned nurses, and Nana was soon surrounded by people trying to figure out what was wrong.  I'm kind of running from memory here, but she was administered calcium, glucose, a chest xray, an EKG and probably some other stuff.  The nurses also wheeled in the emergency cart so if something more happened, they'd have what they'd need.

Laura told me that Nana was given cardizem, and it was probably too much for her.  The hospital staff was giving her calcium to absorb the cardizem, and glucose (I think) to help thin it.  But they have to be careful with the glucose, as too much fluid isn't a good thing for someone with failing heart valves.

The hospital has moved Nana to the ICU, and Laura came home because they were in the middle of their shift change.  Fortunately, the hospital is less than 10 minutes away.

Laura also told me that Dr. M came by and he, Dr. W as well as the head cardiologist for the hospital are trying to locate a surgeon who's willing to perform Nana's heart surgery.  He indicated that it might be hard to find someone because of the high risk involved.  Age, heart rhythm, kidney function and breathing difficulties are all factoring in to the level of risk.

I really hope that someone will be willing to do this surgery, otherwise, we're likely to have to keep bringing Nana back to the hospital seemingly every 10 to 14 days.

Laura left about 20 minutes ago to see how things are going, and to make sure that Nana's all settled.  She just now got home..around 10:30pm.  Nana's all settled in the ICU as much as possible.  A doctor should be by sometime in the morning and hopefully she'll be returned to her normal room.