Angie & Jim

In the ICUby Jim

I’m with Angie now in the ICU. We’ve been back for a couple hours. Angie’s regular cardiologist, Dr. Lui, paid us a visit to give us his take on things. Angie’s in good spirits, and she (finally) got her promised orange popsicle (gotta love children’s hospitals). She hasn’t been able to eat solid foods yet, but popsicles count as clear liquids, which is nice. They decided to keep us in the ICU tonight for the first dose of her new medicine. Angie’s mom is here and we decided to watch the old 1942 To Be or Not to Be, one of our favorites.

Dr. Lui said that the negative side effects of this new drug generally take a long time (years or decades) to become problematic, and for the short-term it should be just fine, and he was optimistic that it should help. Other patients that have gone on it seem to respond well, so that’s encouraging. They need to “load” her on her new medicine, which means they give her the maximum dosage for 5-6 days before she drops to the regular dosage. Unfortunately, during the “loading” the acute side effects include nausea and dizziness. Yay. We’ll only need to stay for 2-3 days, and finish the “loading” at home. So, that’ll be our routine for the next week or so.