Calling All Angels...

Due to several recent requests of exactly what has happened with Mom, I am going to start this out with a "short" recap. Right now Mom is resting quietly, while sedated on the ventilator again.

On November 24, the Monday before Thanksgiving, Mom was taken to the ER at Glenwood Regional Medical Center where she was diagnosed with Acute Pancreatitis and sent to the Cardiovascular ICU (which turned into a great mercy). She was still awake that night when I arrived and it seemed that she was going to have a normal rough bout of this incredibly painful illness, and then be out of the hospital relatively quickly. Unfortunately, we were wrong. The next day her body began failing due to the toxins released by the pancreas sending her into acute respiratory distress (ARDS) with systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS). This lead to her being placed on a ventilator along with kidney and liver failure. She was placed on dialysis almost immediately and was in a sedated coma for about a month and a half all together. The week of Christmas a fear began to surface that she had lost mental function due to her very low blood pressure the first week of her illness. It turned out to be some added liver failure.

However, she did rally from this. The week after Christmas, with much rejoicing by all the prayer warriors involved (I have been amazed by the people praying for her.), she woke up, recognized everyone, and began smiling. Her kindey function returned and they began trying to wean her off the vent. This however turned into a longer process than we originally thought it would due to the fluid imbalances that she was having.

In January she was transferred to Willis Knighton Medical Center in Shreveport so that Dr. Zabari and his team could look into the pancreatic cysts that had developed and where now in her abdomen. Drains were placed and they seemed be successfully draining at that time. She also finally got off the vent and was doing well enough to start physical therapy and to be transferred out to the Stepdown unit and from there to Promise Hospital Bossier, a Long Term Acute Care, so that she could be under the care of my most beloved and amazing Dr. San Pedro who I work with at Willis Knighton Bossier.

While at Promise she began getting much better and I began to rest easy. Her trach was finally removed and she, while depressed, seemed to be on the road to recovery. Unfortunately, at this time she had a drug resistant strain of Pseudonymous which began to cause some trouble. Also, at this time the drains began to stop working and her large, main drain was accidentally pulled out by physical therapy while they were assisting her back to bed after one of her morning sessions. However, we found that the tube was blocked and so wasn't working. Dr. San Pedro began pulling fluid from the two drains left daily until they stopped and Mom was all set to have her drains replaced to larger ones as the doctors began thinking that the fluid in the cysts was just to thick to be pulled out through the ones present.

Then the return to ICU happened. Two weeks ago, right before the drains were scheduled to be replaced, Mom spiked a temp, her heart rate accelerated, and her blood pressure (BP) began to bottom out. It was feared that she had thrown a blood clot that had ended up in her lung causing a pulmonary embolus but that was ruled out by a CAT scan and as the day went on it became more apparent that she was becoming septic (really bad infection) in her blood stream.

She was moved across the street to Willis Knighton Bossier (where I work) and placed in the ICU there. It was great having my doctors care for her, knowing her nurses, and being surrounded by my work family. Props to all of you! :-) Dr. Mainous, General Surgery, was consulted and two operations later she was doing great having had all the rotten junk that was living inside of her cleaned out (see my past two notes for more detail regarding the surgeries). We moved forward trying to aggressively wean her off the vent. And thus concludes the summary...yeah, I know, ridiculously long.

This weekend I worked and so was able to run down to the ICU several times a day to check on Mom. She was doing pretty well and I had a small party when Dr. San Pedro was rounding on my patient's and he told me that the tube was being pulled on Saturday. Mom was awake Friday and making motions that she wanted her tube out right now. Saturday she did well off the vent, other than her oxygen saturation dropping very time she pulled her high flow oxygen make off...yeah, the drugs were still with her a good bit. Dad and Claire came to visit that night and all was satisfactory.

Then yesterday happened. At 8 that morning when I headed down after getting my day in order, she was fine, tired, but stable. At 10, for visiting hours, she had spiked a temp of 103 which dropped after some tylenol and didn't go back up, but her respirations became labored. At noon when I went in to check before my lunch run to Subway I found respiratory rolling in a BIPAP (forces air in her lungs via a mask strapped to her face and helps her breath...not a good thing to see) into her room and Dr. San Pedro at the bedside working over her putting an ART line in to monitor her blood pressure and to draw ABG's (a lab that tell you how well the patient is breathing). It really wasn't a good afternoon. She struggled to breath until about 5 pm when Dr. San Pedro rounded upstairs finally and told me that she was now opening her eyes (she had been unresponsive before) and trying to talk a bit. Catherine came to town, finally, and so the 5pm visiting found the whole family together at this beside. I do wish it had been more cheerful.

At 7pm when I went to check on her before I headed home I found her looking a good bit better but still working at breathing and the BIPAP still on. I headed out to dinner with my two work buddies to destress and laugh a bit. Dr. San Pedro called me about 8:30 to tell me that he was having to put Mom back on the vent and that he was going to get a trach replaced. Not what I wanted to hear but I couldn't say that I was surprised.

This morning found her resting peacefully and looking much better. Her trach is to be placed tomorrow. The Pseudemonous has mutated again to another drug resistant strain. She's got some other bugs that aren't helping things either. They also found that Mom had aspirated her tube feeding when they put the tube back down...a.k.a she inhaled it into her lung. All this is not good but she still can get over this. We are not yet at the point of no return.

However, that being said, I will not pretend that Mom is not seriously ill. Her body has taken many hits and much now depends upon her will to live. Prayers are needed more than ever. Any visitors, cards, anything that I can read to her are welcome. Even though she is in a drug induced coma she can still hear to the best of my knowledge. We serve a mighty God who works miracles. Hope is not lost. Mom is critical in the fullest sense of the word but there is still something for us to work with. Keep up the prayers. She needs them!

Also, keep Daddy in your prayers. The toll of this is beginning to more and more visibly wear on him. He needs strength to carry on as well.

Thank each and every one of you for the prayers sent heavenward for her.

Blessings,
~Christine