October 4
We had a great day, we are on the mend. She has been taking her regular medicines and antibiotics. The culture came back and she had E. coli, now we can narrow
the antibiotics to cure the infection. We are planning to leave the
hospital later today or Saturday.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
She is a whipper snapper...
October 3,2013
Dr mike came to see us and saw what a whipper snapper mom is and yet now at the end of the night she is pretty much back to being very sick. Dr Fedor popped his head in, because Dr Bower (cardiologist) came to see mom. The liver team can to see her (minus Russo) they were pleased with the paracentesis results 3.6 liters). Aunt Marlene and aunt Barbara came to visit, she slept most of the time while they visited. She seemed pretty good all day and while aunt Marlene and aunt Barbara were here (I went home for a bit to shower and be home) she started to go down hill -probably rundown from all the activity today.
I asked the on-call Dr. to see about changing her antibiotics as they seemed to have stopped working. They changed them over to 2 other antibiotics and gave her some Digoxin to regulate her heart.
Dr mike came to see us and saw what a whipper snapper mom is and yet now at the end of the night she is pretty much back to being very sick. Dr Fedor popped his head in, because Dr Bower (cardiologist) came to see mom. The liver team can to see her (minus Russo) they were pleased with the paracentesis results 3.6 liters). Aunt Marlene and aunt Barbara came to visit, she slept most of the time while they visited. She seemed pretty good all day and while aunt Marlene and aunt Barbara were here (I went home for a bit to shower and be home) she started to go down hill -probably rundown from all the activity today.
I asked the on-call Dr. to see about changing her antibiotics as they seemed to have stopped working. They changed them over to 2 other antibiotics and gave her some Digoxin to regulate her heart.
A tough climb up, she seems up for the challenge!
October 2nd
What a start! Mom got checked in, switched over, and bathed by the neurosurgical team! They started her on antibiotics at 5am. Attempted to put a tube down her nose to help with medicine administration and suck out contents of her stomach. They tried twice and mom was not having it nor helping with the placement of the tube.
Boy have I had some conversations this morning.
We are in a really critical place right now. If she doesn't show improvement that pretty much means she will not recover and then it's all about comfort.
A real nice doctor came in, first thing, to get a better understanding of mom and her/our situation. We talked for a bit in her room then I thought the conversation should be taken out of ear shot so we went to a conference room on the floor. When we came back mom was talking to me bit and was responsive-following the doctor with her head and answered a couple of his questions.
While in the conference room the doctor and I talked about what care here at the hospital is to look like. He posed a couple different options. Long story short I told him I wanted a hybrid of the two situations he mentioned.
He mentioned....1. Just controlling pain 2. Taking any means necessary to cure the infection and her possibly not making it out of the hospital. 3. A combination of both (which gets tricky).
Again I said I wanted both. I told him I think/thought she can/could fight this infection. I also said that because I know she doesn't want to end up on a ventilator as her last time on earth. I told him (as he is well versed in extremely sick people working in the ICU only) if he sees her decline to the point of her not getting well (from the antibiotics) we need to stop treatment and take her home for comfort.
They laid off the nose tube and gave her water then lactalose orally. We found out that she is no longer clogged up. She had two solid bowel movements. They continued her antibiotics, lactalose, and rufaximum, she seemed to show improvement in both her body and mind.
What a start! Mom got checked in, switched over, and bathed by the neurosurgical team! They started her on antibiotics at 5am. Attempted to put a tube down her nose to help with medicine administration and suck out contents of her stomach. They tried twice and mom was not having it nor helping with the placement of the tube.
Boy have I had some conversations this morning.
We are in a really critical place right now. If she doesn't show improvement that pretty much means she will not recover and then it's all about comfort.
A real nice doctor came in, first thing, to get a better understanding of mom and her/our situation. We talked for a bit in her room then I thought the conversation should be taken out of ear shot so we went to a conference room on the floor. When we came back mom was talking to me bit and was responsive-following the doctor with her head and answered a couple of his questions.
While in the conference room the doctor and I talked about what care here at the hospital is to look like. He posed a couple different options. Long story short I told him I wanted a hybrid of the two situations he mentioned.
He mentioned....1. Just controlling pain 2. Taking any means necessary to cure the infection and her possibly not making it out of the hospital. 3. A combination of both (which gets tricky).
Again I said I wanted both. I told him I think/thought she can/could fight this infection. I also said that because I know she doesn't want to end up on a ventilator as her last time on earth. I told him (as he is well versed in extremely sick people working in the ICU only) if he sees her decline to the point of her not getting well (from the antibiotics) we need to stop treatment and take her home for comfort.
They laid off the nose tube and gave her water then lactalose orally. We found out that she is no longer clogged up. She had two solid bowel movements. They continued her antibiotics, lactalose, and rufaximum, she seemed to show improvement in both her body and mind.
Back at it again...
Oct 1, 2013
Tough start to the October month, I have to believe it will get easier as the month progresses. We were up at 4 am this morning with a lot of confusion on how to get from the bed to the bedside commode. With help she got to the toilet, but she didn't relieve her bowels. She has been stopped up for days now, maybe since last Wednesday. A male nurse from hospice came out to give her an enema at 6:45 ish. Come to find out the enema route wasn't exactly the route we should have traveled down instead she was/is still a bit impacted. Her poop is there, but so compacted that its extremely difficult to move on its own....supervised extracting with fingers is the easiest removal method. She will mostly take a stool softener from now on just to make sure the impacting doesn't happen again or atleast lesson the chances.
Two cool things learned today....
1 the male nurse said its not uncommon for patients with ovarian cancer to have the actual tumor to obstruct the bowel-not good!
2 the nurse Michelle said the more you poop with lactalose the more ammonia is in the body. Lactalose binds to the ammonia forming soft stool. Most likely if mom doesn't poop as a result of the lactalose she didn't have an ammonia build up in her body.
Michelle the nurse extracted a good amount of poop and said mom might need to have extraction done again as late or around Thursday or Friday. She did poop small chunks on her own at about 5 which us progress.
Fast forward to 8 pm after her lift chair got fixed by husband. I asked her if she wanted to sit in her chair and she was prettying unresponsive. I got pretty worried. Eric and I decided to call hospice for advise on how to proceed. An on-call nurse came out to moms and accessed her-with the fact that I wanted to fix the problem that was/is aligning her, the best solution is/was to take her to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital around 11 we followed the same route as the ambulance. We pulled up right behind her and husband could tell that it was mom lying in the back of the ambulance. They accessed her a bit before we were allowed in the ER room. They listened to our description and her own behaviors or lack of. They deduced her body was becoming sepsis- she was shaking, running a temp, unresponsive, and unable to follow commands. The planned action was to draw blood and cultures, start antibiotics, and get her to ICU. She was headed up to the 9th floor ICU (the neurosurgical floor).
Tough start to the October month, I have to believe it will get easier as the month progresses. We were up at 4 am this morning with a lot of confusion on how to get from the bed to the bedside commode. With help she got to the toilet, but she didn't relieve her bowels. She has been stopped up for days now, maybe since last Wednesday. A male nurse from hospice came out to give her an enema at 6:45 ish. Come to find out the enema route wasn't exactly the route we should have traveled down instead she was/is still a bit impacted. Her poop is there, but so compacted that its extremely difficult to move on its own....supervised extracting with fingers is the easiest removal method. She will mostly take a stool softener from now on just to make sure the impacting doesn't happen again or atleast lesson the chances.
Two cool things learned today....
1 the male nurse said its not uncommon for patients with ovarian cancer to have the actual tumor to obstruct the bowel-not good!
2 the nurse Michelle said the more you poop with lactalose the more ammonia is in the body. Lactalose binds to the ammonia forming soft stool. Most likely if mom doesn't poop as a result of the lactalose she didn't have an ammonia build up in her body.
Michelle the nurse extracted a good amount of poop and said mom might need to have extraction done again as late or around Thursday or Friday. She did poop small chunks on her own at about 5 which us progress.
Fast forward to 8 pm after her lift chair got fixed by husband. I asked her if she wanted to sit in her chair and she was prettying unresponsive. I got pretty worried. Eric and I decided to call hospice for advise on how to proceed. An on-call nurse came out to moms and accessed her-with the fact that I wanted to fix the problem that was/is aligning her, the best solution is/was to take her to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital around 11 we followed the same route as the ambulance. We pulled up right behind her and husband could tell that it was mom lying in the back of the ambulance. They accessed her a bit before we were allowed in the ER room. They listened to our description and her own behaviors or lack of. They deduced her body was becoming sepsis- she was shaking, running a temp, unresponsive, and unable to follow commands. The planned action was to draw blood and cultures, start antibiotics, and get her to ICU. She was headed up to the 9th floor ICU (the neurosurgical floor).
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Good thoughts are working!
Tuesday October 16, 2012
Cardio doctor seems to like what she sees, haven't seen the medical doctor yet today. We are very positive and not only are we on the road to recovery...... we are on the road out of here(hopefully soon)!
We have introduced some new meds (heart and antibiotics) and discontinued others, Mom's body just needs to adjust (so i guess one more day in here). Mom is over being in the hosptial and wants to go home, we will have clear skies as we exit CMC.
Cardio doctor seems to like what she sees, haven't seen the medical doctor yet today. We are very positive and not only are we on the road to recovery...... we are on the road out of here(hopefully soon)!
We have introduced some new meds (heart and antibiotics) and discontinued others, Mom's body just needs to adjust (so i guess one more day in here). Mom is over being in the hosptial and wants to go home, we will have clear skies as we exit CMC.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Labor Day
Mom had a very busy and tiring weekend! Kerstin came in town, she and Mom went shopping. I heard Christopher tried to take Mom to the food store, but she was worn out from her prior shopping and was unable to buy more!
Family is a fantastic thing!
Hospital visit Fall 2012
Well we are trying our best to stay out of the hosptal....we had been doing good for quite awhile. This Saturday (October 2012) Mom's heart rate was pretty high and she came on in to the hospital. We have agreed this is going to be a short visit and she will be back home very soon.
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