Guest Writer
Dana has been in the ICU since July 17. Many days she was in a medically induced fog and slept a lot. Many specialists came in to see her: neurologist, pulmonary doctors, nutritionist, physical/occupational therapists, respiratory therapists, kidney specialists, infectious disease doctors, and more. Some days we would visit her and just sit and watch her lying in the bed, breathing with the help of a ventilator, hooked up to so many IVs and monitors. Every day she was having a chest X-ray to see if the pneumonia was getting better. She had a tracheostomy because she still needed the oxygen that she couldn’t get from her lungs because they were full of pneumonia. Those early weeks were very scary.
The edema in her hands and legs was incredible. It was painful for her to bend her knees to sit. She was on Lasix for many days and though she was producing urine, her body held onto the extra fluids from all the IVs pumped into her 24/7. In this photo, you can see the edema in her hands and legs – 70 pounds of extra fluid! This photo was taken July 27, 2018.
Aug. 5, 2018
7:47 a.m. This has been a roller coaster. Her spirits seem better. She is getting out of bed at least once a day. She is using the ventilator less. She still has persistent spots of pneumonia.
8:47 a.m. Dana played a joke on us by having the nurse keep the feeding tube tape on her nose but the tube was no longer needed. She wanted to see how long it took us to notice.
Aug. 6, 2018
7:46 a.m. The ICU staff called me at 5:30 this morning. Dana might get a gastric tube inserted in her belly today. The doctor who would be doing the surgery will do an ultrasound first and if he sees fluid in her abdomen he won’t do the surgery. The gastric tube is to help prevent aspirating liquids when she’s swallowing.
Aug. 9, 2018
4:20 p.m. Just got done the trach cleaning class.
