The Joy of the Lord is our Strength

Grandad's funeral went very well.  It was nice and simple, just the way he would have wanted it.  It was video taped so that if mom decides she wants to view it, the option exists.

Speaking of mom.  Not good.  Well, the treach and feeding tube they put in this afternoon went well.  She looks much more comfortable.  As I was walking in to see her, the lung specialist was just finishing up.  In a nutshell, he showed me the picture of her lungs the day she came in and the picture of them today.  Drastic difference, for the worse.  Most of all of her lungs are white and we are wanting them to be black.  I informed the Lung Dr. of what her Dr. said, about her surviving being very slim.  He strongly agreed.  He said in the unlikely event she makes it, it won't be because of medicine, although they are doing everything possible.

Thank you sooooo much Craig for your continuous updates.  Please continue to do so as you understand the terminology and stuff better than I do.

I am back in Odessa for another week or so.  This is what I have found out: Mom is getting a treachea, feeding tube, and having fluid extracted from her lungs tomorrow.  I spoke with her Dr. who said she has what is called ARDS.  This is not good.  I did some internet research and from what I can tell, anywhere between 30-70% of people who develop ARDS die.  The average seemed to be about 40%.  Those who do survive are more likely to do so if the ARDS is caused by trauma to the lungs rather than sepsis (which she has) or pnemonia (which she has).  So there you go.  That's all I know at this point.

I did speak with a lovely lady named Ruth who is the Patient Advocate right under the Director of the hospital.  I went to her for several reasons, the main one being that I really feel like there is a huge lack of communication from nurse to nurse, Dr. to Dr.  I felt as though things were just kind of, "well, we'll see, we don't know, yadda yadda".  Once she got on top of things I quickly received a call from the surgeon doing the treach and from her Dr. two times who gave me three numbers to reach him at if I have any questions.  This is when the Dr. informed me that she is critically ill with ARDS and that her chances of survival are slim.

I am home now so the posts will probably go down to 1 or maybe 2 a day.  Larry called last night and told Jake that mom's feeding tube got infected and they had to change it out.  That's all I know at this point.  If any of you there in Odessa go to see her and talk to the Dr. or nurses (or you Aunt Jan) and have any new information, please either post it here, email me at amanda.guinn@gmail.com, or call my house at 936.788.2154 or cell at 936.828.7571.

As of about 3:00 today her blood pressure was really really high.  They called the Dr. who said to give her some sort of medicine.  Her temp was the same tonight but her blood pressure came down a little.  Everything else remains the same.

I am heading back home for a week tomorrow morning.  I will be coming back next Tuesday, November 18th.  Hopefully she'll be doing better by then.

Please continue to pray for her.  Thank you again to all who have helped out during this time.  I am forever grateful.

Well, I went to see her and she's about the same.  Her heart rate is 130 and her temp was 100.3.  They still have her on 45% oxygen.  The Dr. was there and told me that basically she's dealing with three things compounded on top of one another: the blood infection, the pnemonia, and all the gunk and fluid and junk on her lungs causing Adult Resp. Syndrom Infection...I think.  Still just a waiting game so, we'll see.

Okay to clear one of my mis-understandings up...I had previously said that they would only leave her on antibiotics for 14 days when in fact that is not true.  That is what the Dr. told me, but what he failed to mention is that he was refering to the same antibiotic to where as I was thinking antibiotics in general.  So, if they find the one that works she'll be on that one for 14 days.  Thank goodness since she's already been in there 8 days.  I didn't go up there tonight but will again in the morning for an update.

Sorry I did not update yesterday.  I actually didn't go see her but instead painted her kitchen to kind of forget about things.  I saw her this morning and the sweeling seemed to have gone down some.  They have changed her oxygen intake down from 50 to 45, which is good.  The less oxygen she is getting through her tube the more she is breathing on her own.  The nurses take her off her "sleepy time" medicine every morning just make sure things are functioning properly.  This is typically done before visiting hours and she doen's come fully to.  However, this morning the nurse did it while my aunts were in the room.  She briefly opened her eyes but her heart rate when up so they sedated her pretty quickly after that.  They still don't have any results back from the blood infection but she hasn't been getting as high of a fever and her white platelett count has gone down (the ones that beat up the bad stuff), so, that seems good.  Her lungs are still the same, no improvement there.

Apparently the nutritionist came by at some point b/c they were giving her food again.  I guess the catscan on her abdomen came out okay???  The good news is that she finally had a bowel movement.  Lung is still really bad and has made no improvement.  I'll ask tomorrow about the results of the latest blood test they did to see if they know anything about the infection.  In the meantime, I am going to paint mom's kitchen.

They still don't know what infection she has, just that it is very serious and she is "Very Sick".  As of this morning the Dr. still hasn't looked at the results of her cat scan on her abdomen.  A nutritionist will be coming by to assess her nutrition and what she needs to be eating.  Lung is the same.

Still the same.  She is very very very puffy and swollen.  They ordered another scan called a CUB (i think) on her something, urinary, and bladder for in the morning.  Casey is going back up there in a bit and will give another update.