End of day report

The big news today was the commencement of plasmapheresis, which involves drawing Kim’s blood into a centrifuge to separate her plasma from her blood and give her a “clean” plasma substitute.  The process takes about two hours and will be repeated once per day for three days.  Plasmapheresis can be used for several therapies, but in Kim’s case the goal is to remove antibodies from her blood stream which may be attacking her lungs on the orders of her immune system.  So those of you keeping score at home are probably thinking “rejection”, and you’re right, that’s the working theory as to why her respiratory thresholds remain low and her lungs look congested on the CT scan.  Once the antibodies are flooding her circulatory system, they don’t want to leave without some encouragement and that’s what the plasmapheresis does. At the same time, of course, the underlying reasons for the antibodies being produced needs to be addressed, and this is all about the immunosuppressant therapies Kim’s been on and needs to scale up.

Even though it’s not great, it’s well within the realm of “normal” and the doctors know how to get her system on the right track. However, this is going to take some time. I asked the doctor tonight if he could ballpark how much longer she would need to stay in ICU and his answer was “about two more weeks”.  It will be two weeks tomorrow that Kim checked in for surgery, so two on top of that is about double what we’d planned for. I broke the news to Kim and while she’s trying to taking it in stride, she’s also very disappointed as I’m sure you can all imagine. And of course “two more weeks” assumes that the working theories are correct and Kim responds well to the therapy.  Fingers crossed. Toes too.

Based on the news of a longer stay, Kim and I have changed our mind about bringing the kids by to see her. They’re getting a bit antsy about Mommy, and four weeks without being in touch with her would be too much. In order to mitigate the potential unease and fright of being in an ICU and seeing  Kim hooked up to all those machines, I’m going to take a short video and a few pictures tomorrow and then walk them through it at home before bringing them in. We won’t stay long, but being able to see her smile will be very soothing from them and for her too, no doubt.

More news tomorrow.