Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Quick update because I am headed out to dinner with my family.

I spent all day with Leslie. No significant changes. She is still making small movements. She responds to pain sometimes...not all of the time, though. We can see her swallow occassionally and today she stretched both her legs out.

While I was talking to Leslie, I forced Leslie to open her eyes and I noticed that her pupils were not aligned. One eye was looking straight ahead, the other eye was drifting off to the right, just slightly. Nothing too drastic, but enough to notice. I mentioned it to the nurse and she said she would mention it to the neurologist. I also noticed that Leslie's pulse ox was only around 93%-95% and her respirations were around 28. I didn't like this. I assumed that since she was on the ventilator, she would be 100% and her respirations would be normal (12-20). I also brought this up to the nurses attention. It was explained to me that they changed the setting on her ventilator to the CPAP setting, so in other words, Leslie was breathing all on her own, the machine was just giving her some extra help. So it made sense that she was breathing a little fast and her oxygen saturation wasn't perfect... it was taking a lot out of her to do all that work. They said that is something they do for all patients on a ventilator so their lungs don't get lazy. Normally they do it for about 30 minutes, but because she was holding her own pretty well, they were leaving it be. They will definitely change it back to the normal setting at night, though, to give her a break.

The doctor came in and talked to me. He said as of right now, her prognosis is poor, but he said not to take that word to heart too much, because it changes day to day. He said she is clearly making SOME progress, because she is moving a bit now, and she still has reflexes and her pupils are reacting to light. There is damage to her heart. He said a portion of her apex is not functioning at all, and her ejection fraction is 45% where normally it would be 60%. He said theses are not issues we are addressing right now, but eventually down the line she would likely need a cardiac cath just to check for any coronary disease. They also aren't saying that any of these issues caused the seizure. It could have, but it also could be the result of the lack of oxygen when she was down.

She has some encephalopathy (I totally know I spelled that wrong...) meaning her brain is swollen. They said it is mild to moderate. The treatment for that is.... wait. He said it's caused by injury and the way an injury gets better is it heals. So we are waiting on her brain to heal.

Its minute by minute. Her labs are good and an MRI is likely going to happen soon. They did a repeat chest x-ray and they were taking her down to interventional radiology to FINALLY do the lumbar puncture.

My family is doing okay. We are tired and emotionally drained, but we are working together and supporting one another. We have an amazing extended family that has brought food, books, and a ton of love. People are also offering to stay with Leslie in shifts so we can go home. We don't want her alone right now. Leslie has pictures of my kids in her room, along with pictures of her beloved Aggie (her cockapoo).

We talk to her, remind her we are there, tell her what happened, and love on her constantly. I washed her hair today with her nurse, and put it into two braids. I also washed her face.

She is hanging in there.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hang in there Laura, and keep writing. It will help you. I am praying for all of you, and hope soon there will be some good news.