June 23

The good news is that the swelling in Mom's small intestine is down compared to the first cat scan she had a while back (2 weeks?).

The bad news is that the die they used in the cat scan may be the cause of her current kidney failure; she has had a number of negative reactions to standard medications this hospital trip. She's on high doses of insulin which the nurse tells me can't be sustained for long; dialysis is not out of the question. She has a temp of 103.5. Her blood sugar is off the charts high (doc says this may be from a domino effect... her kidneys not working properly may be causing her pancreas to not work properly). Her blood pressure was down to 60/43 at one point. It was 116/43 when I left at 8:30. Her heart rate was around 111 -- not too bad. The vent is doing all the work of her breathing -- which is via tracheotomy now so at least all those tubes are in her mouth.

To say that she was lethargic for a good part of the day could almost be described as an understatement. Once her sugar came down a little around 7 pm, she woke up and was very alert and aware, almost like she just woke up from a nap; albeit, she was very weak. I was happy to be there because she held on tight to my hand until she told me to go home and be with my kids.

I'm hoping that history repeats itself. Every other time Mom has had a bad day during this hospital trip, she's been very strong and in much better condition the following day. I hope to report that to you tomorrow.

We are waiting for the hospital in Ann Arbor to accept her which probably won't happen before Monday, if it happens on Monday.

At that point, I am going to need even more help with Dad.

I hope that he'll stay with me in Fenton on Saturday nights so I can take him to Ann Arbor on Saturday and Sundays without having to go to Flushing and back both days. Ann Arbor is close to my work so I'll visit Mom a lot during the working week as will Dave, my husband, who works in Ann Arbor. However, that makes it hard for me to get Dad there during the week. I would be ecstatic if a couple of you would offer to take him once a week on a regular basis (something like, "I'll take Tuesdays."). You know Dad, he'll resist the help but he simply can't drive that far -- he blacks out too often from his strokes.

I wish I had better news to report. Nonetheless, I still feel like she's going to pull through this. Like Kim say, "Aunt Lou, we'll be drinking iced tea on your porch talking about this next summer."

Looking forward to looking back on all of this...
Kaylee