Sept 4 - Hurley ICU

We now have Mom under the care of Dr. Peddyreddy, Dad's doctor. Part of my problem with Hurley is that the docs won't communicate with me, period. They may be good at what they do but I could have no way of knowing that without any communication.

Dr. Amlani, Dad's heart doc who gave a second opinion on Mom's heart condition, really stepped up to the plate. He listened to my "customer service" concerns, suggested Dr. Peddyreddy take over as primary, called Dr. Peddyreddy's office for us, and wham! someone from Dr P's office visited Mom that day! I think Dr. A put it best... to the staff docs at Hurley, Mom is just a patient that moved to their department from PT. Since Mom's doc (Dr. Kinra) hasn't shown any interest in her coupled with the fact that she has a new nurse everyday, Mom never really had a medical advocate. (Dr. Kinra never bothered to follow Mom once she left McLaren. That is a generous statement since Dr. Kinra didn't really follow her in McLaren, either. She'd call me for updates!) Dr. P's office has visited Mom everyday since. Dr. P is out of the country but will return to make the visits himself next week, I think.

I visited Mom last Fri, Sat, and Sun. She was doing pretty much the same on those days. She's on a diuretic to keep her fluids down which has helped her heart. Her heart is testing fine except the one level that keeps track of inflammation was showing as too high so this diuretic has helped with that. Now that I think of it, I'm not sure if this is a temporary condition or something we need to be concerned with over the long run. This heart inflammation could be making it difficult for Mom to ween off the vent.

Mom hasn't had a temp in days.

Mom's having trouble weening off the vent. The mode that normally was no big deal for her when she was stable and all the planets were aligned is giving her troubles. She could only tolerate it for 3 hours the other day.

Hurley finally took her off the sedative that had caused her to hallucinate in a negative way at McLaren. A couple of us had to jump up and down and waive our arms and shout a lot to get her off this med. Amazing how they didn't know this.

I complained to the nurse manager, Chrystal, that Mom has a nurse that has never had her before the vast majority of the time. How can she be well cared for in ICU if her nurse never knows her? I got immediate results. Mom had the same nurse Fri - Sun. Let's just see if this wonderful event repeats itself.

We think my daughter has the chicken pox. That will impede my ability to go visit Mom this week. We were supposed to take our rescheduled vacation, the one that we post-poned at 4th of July because of Mom's illness, next week. Now, with Grace having the chicken pox, we may have to cancel all together. Wouldn't you know it?

Mom went into the hospital the day after Memorial Day. Well, it's the day after labor day. Poor thing, she missed summer all together!