June 29

I continue to be impressed with the no-nonsense approach that the staff at HF take with Mom. They are not sugar coating anything. More than once I've had an ICU nurse stop me and say that she's not doing well. Amazingly enough, I appreciate this. McLaren just had nothing but positive things to say so we never 1. believed them or 2. knew what to expect.

John plans to drive to Michigan after dropping Madison off on Sunday. I don't know how long he will be staying but his focus will be on helping Dad and being with Mom.

Her kidneys are not working so she is on a slow dialysis again today -- takes something like 8 hours to complete. Her kidney functions are one of the biggest concerns to the doctors at this time. The docs will determine if she needs dialysis each morning.

She's on steroids to help her lungs which are causing her sugar to go high again. She's averaging around 220 which is way high to the average person. She is on an insulin drip. She is on full vent. Her lungs are the other major concern.

She continues to have a temperature from the mystery infection so they are giving her two broad based antibiotics. Mom reacted to a key antibiotic, venko myasin (sp?) at McLaren so they stopped it. HF doesn't like this approach. Their theory is who cares if she gets a little itchy or if her throat swells, she's on a trech anyway. They will administer vm at a slower pace because they feel that it may reach a bacteria that other antibiotics don't.

She continues to have diaria which could now be from the antibiotics.

Looks like her adrenal glands are shutting down -- I have no idea what that means.

Her blood pressure is better today. They took her off of one of the medications used to keep her blood pressure up. They were very positive about this move.

Because her blood pressure is better, they are stopping the sedatives in hopes that she'll start coughing the build up of secretions out of her lungs. It will take a long time for the sedative to work its way out of her system so she won't wake real soon.

Her liver is starting to fail. She has that yellow color about her although I swear it became better after the four hours I visited today. The nurse said that it's common for the liver to shut down if the kidneys are down for any amount of time. The liver is a follower.

She is managing to process the minimal nutrition (10 units) they are giving her.

They are taking new blood cultures all the time; it's too early for those results.

Because of Mom's sinus drainage, they will take a cat scan of her sinuses tonight at 8:30 pm. Results won't be available until tomorrow.

Ma is septic. Her doctor explained that people in her condition in Michigan don't survive this on average 70% of the time. HF is much better than that, 40%.

Pray.