July 6

Visitation: John will stop in and quickly say "Hello/Goodbye" to Mom and drop Dad off at the hospital tomorrow morning, Saturday, then keep on driving home to Virginia Beach. I will visit Mom and take Dad home in the morning. Aunt Lisa and Aunt Susie are going together in the afternoon to visit her. Kim hopes to visit her on Sunday but that is not set in stone. She will take Dad if he agrees. Jan C will take Dad to HF next Thursday. Besides that, I don't know how Dad will get down there because I can't take him except for on Saturdays. I will try to visit her on Tuesdays and Thursdays mid-day, after I check into work in the morning then I'll leave before rush hour traffic engulfs me.

Diagnosis: Mom continues to do marvelously. The resident in charge of Mom's case gave me a little bit of a different story than the RN from the previous day. Mom's Pancreas Divisum started when Mom wasn't even born yet (gestational). The Pancreatitis probably pointed out this problem, which probably wouldn't have been a problem without the Pancreatitis. The Pancreatitis, it seems, may have been caused by a med that McLaren gave her via IV called something like TRM (I forget and am guessing here). It all boils down to the general antibiotics that HF gave her doing their job properly. Mom's blood cultures have never grown any goo, as I call it, so we may never know. Remember that the Pancreas issues could have caused all the problems she's been dealing with while in the hospital. It may not have been the cause of what brought her into the hospital. That issue may be fixed from antibiotics. No one can be for sure. Anyway, you could say that she's either a new woman or that she's the woman we all know and love, not the septic one that we cried over just earlier this week.

Kidneys: Awake but not perfect. Mom had dialysis today to give them a little break. The resident was clear that we don't know if her kidneys will ever be back to normal. She had normal output for only a couple hours in the last 24 hours which is great but not enough.

Neuro: Mom is awake, alert, smiling, and curious.

Lungs: Mom is basically off the vent. They put her back on the lowest setting while she sleeps at night so that her body can heal that much better.

Trachiodomy: The initial assessment today on Mom's Trach is that they need to do a more thorough assessment. She will have some kind of scope done on Monday to help determine the trach strategy. Having the vent for so long means that they need to figure out how she will learn to swallow, eat, talk, cough stuff up, etc. She may get a differnt trach that will allow her to work around the trach so that she can talk. The current trach completely closes off her throat.

Gut: Mom is off nutrients again because she has a nose bleed that is ending up in her stomach. The nose bleed is probably a result of her low hemoglobin count which is probably a result of the dialysis which is probably a result of the die contrast used in her ct scan two weeks ago that resulted in nothing which was a result of McLaren having no idea what was wrong with Mom which is a result of some incompetence on their part.

Incidentally: The nurse that was assigned to her the first two days that she was in HF approached me in the cafeteria today and asked me if I saw Mom yet. She was amazed because when she went into work today, she saw Mom and thought she was a new patient. She didn't know that Mom was the same woman she cared for in her darkest days. WONDERFUL!

I was so excited / distracted about how well Mom was doing today that I didn't get much more info to report to you.

Have a great weekend!
Kaylee 810-625-8481