End of Day Report
End of day report for Tuesday!
Today was another good day of steady progress. We had four goals at the start of the day:
1) Perform a bronchoscopy to check out the condition of her new lungs from the inside
2) Get Kim’s epidural in so that her chest pain can be mitigated enough for her to lower her sedation and give us some good breaths
3) Get the stitches on her chin taken out (from her late-night fall last Thursday)
4) Get her off sedation and wake her up!
5) Take out her ventilator
The bronchoscopy showed perfect, pink, healthy lungs which of course is exactly what we wanted to see. No sign of infection and all the little bronchioles were doing their jobs just beautifully. Lungs having passed with flying colors, we slowly began working through the next three goals (the stitches came out great; virtually no scarring), but as she was slowly coming off her sedative, it was clear she was still pretty uncomfortable and that not all of her blood numbers were ideal. They were super close, however, and her doctor strongly considered moving forward with taking out the ventilator anyhow since Kim had made an impression on him as a strong fighter, but in the end the decision was made not to rush things. The doctor was super considerate about all this, and discussed the pros and cons with Cheryl and me at length. So at around 6:30 she was put back on the “good stuff” so that she’ll be comfortable tonight, and we’ll give it another try in the morning after she’s had a bit more time to completely stabilize.
Because I know Robin and Alayne will ask, Kim’s PH was a tad high (the acid kind, not the pulmonary kind), so they hit her up with some bicarb. Also, her HR was hovering around 140 which was a bit higher than we wanted, although her BP was holding at a nice steady 100ish. We’re slowing backing off her PEEP so that she’s becoming more and more responsible for her breathing, and that will continue through the night. The “good stuff” for tonight is Propofol, so I can pretty much guarantee she’s feeling better than all of us combined :)
On the home front, Jack and Charlotte are doing great in the care of Jessi and Joby. Today was their last day of school, and they’ve got plans for some overnight stays with friends and other fun times. Also, the meal train has been AWESOME! Thank you all SO MUCH.
I hope I answered your questions, but if you have more please let me know!
Today was another good day of steady progress. We had four goals at the start of the day:
1) Perform a bronchoscopy to check out the condition of her new lungs from the inside
2) Get Kim’s epidural in so that her chest pain can be mitigated enough for her to lower her sedation and give us some good breaths
3) Get the stitches on her chin taken out (from her late-night fall last Thursday)
4) Get her off sedation and wake her up!
5) Take out her ventilator
The bronchoscopy showed perfect, pink, healthy lungs which of course is exactly what we wanted to see. No sign of infection and all the little bronchioles were doing their jobs just beautifully. Lungs having passed with flying colors, we slowly began working through the next three goals (the stitches came out great; virtually no scarring), but as she was slowly coming off her sedative, it was clear she was still pretty uncomfortable and that not all of her blood numbers were ideal. They were super close, however, and her doctor strongly considered moving forward with taking out the ventilator anyhow since Kim had made an impression on him as a strong fighter, but in the end the decision was made not to rush things. The doctor was super considerate about all this, and discussed the pros and cons with Cheryl and me at length. So at around 6:30 she was put back on the “good stuff” so that she’ll be comfortable tonight, and we’ll give it another try in the morning after she’s had a bit more time to completely stabilize.
Because I know Robin and Alayne will ask, Kim’s PH was a tad high (the acid kind, not the pulmonary kind), so they hit her up with some bicarb. Also, her HR was hovering around 140 which was a bit higher than we wanted, although her BP was holding at a nice steady 100ish. We’re slowing backing off her PEEP so that she’s becoming more and more responsible for her breathing, and that will continue through the night. The “good stuff” for tonight is Propofol, so I can pretty much guarantee she’s feeling better than all of us combined :)
On the home front, Jack and Charlotte are doing great in the care of Jessi and Joby. Today was their last day of school, and they’ve got plans for some overnight stays with friends and other fun times. Also, the meal train has been AWESOME! Thank you all SO MUCH.
I hope I answered your questions, but if you have more please let me know!
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