mom update

Spent about five hours at the hospital today, split between the morning and evening.

In the morning she was still heavily sedated, but much of that was due to sedation from a central line implantation overnight. We met one of her doctors and my interpretation of what he said amounts to: We don't know what happened, though we know what the result is. We can't tell why this and that are still going on, so because we don't know why it occurred or why this and that are still occurring, we have no idea how to remedy the situation.

She's intubated, not intevated or whatever way I'd spelled it before. So much for ten years of pre-med at the ER medical school (maybe I should have watched with the closed-captioning active). Dropped a few pennies this afternoon on a medical book-cum-dictionary aimed at those in the medical profession, so here's hoping I use the correct words from now on.

Spent the afternoon at the house, looking for some papers that seem to have disappeared in the house, as well as her various medicines. No one was certain what she has been taking so I just grabbed everything I could find and brought it back to the hospital tonight. Still didn't find the papers we were looking for.

This evening we showed up at 6:30 for the 8:00 visiting hours. Hey, I'm usually criticized for being an hour late. They let us in early (7:45) and we spent about an hour inside the room (she's in isolation while they wait for her flu culture results). While we were there, there were some minor complications during a respiratory treatment (more like reaction than complication). Nothing to describe, and she's ok, but the experience of having all of the alarms going off and on and off was a bit unnerving.

Brief KMC update

Spent the midday at the hospital. She's had moderate improvement overnight. They've dropped her from 100% O₂ to 85% yet her O₂ levels are remaining in the high 80s - low 90s range. This is a good thing because it indicates they may be able to ween her off the ventilator, eventually.

Also got to talk a bit with the staff about the recovery, that is, I asked for an idea of how the next days and weeks would run assuming all goes well. We're looking at at another week on the ventilator, maybe more (and she'll remain in an isolation ward at any rate until they are certain she is clear of influenza). After that possibly several more weeks of in-hospital recovery.