Angie & Jim

More Questionsby Jim

Well, things were going great: Angie was feeling well, we were weaning her off of the oxygen, etc.  Angie wanted to go for a walk, but I convinced her that she ought to try something a little less intense, like sitting in a chair for a bit instead.  (Previous attempts at walks have been really hard on her.)  She wants to go home and has been anxious to try and push herself to accomplish her daily goals.  So, we called the nurse and got her sitting in the chair.  Very quickly, her oxygen saturation levels got quite low.  Low enough that they called the doctors and ordered a stat chest x-ray and blood work.  There were 2 or 3 nurses in here very quickly as we got her back into bed and lying down.  They hurriedly put a face mask on her instead of the nasal cannula and turned up the oxygen to the max.

The doctors came and all looked a little concerned as they talked to us and each other.  The biggest concern they have is why this is happening.  During the whole thing, Angie remained calm and didn’t feel any pain or discomfort besides some strong fatigue while in the chair.  One of the younger doctors came in after their meeting out in the hallway and chatted with us for a minute.  His name is Dr. Perizo and he was very nice.  He wanted to try a little experiment with the oxygen saturation levels and sitting up.  They wanted to see if the low sats came from exertion or from body position.  So, they put the bed all the way down and let Angie lie for 5 minutes to see how she would do.  She got to 96% saturation, which is actually the best she’s been since she’s been here.  Of course, she was on a ton of extra oxygen.  She runs between 90-92% without any extra oxygen just normally with room air.  Then Dr. Perizo and I helped her to sit up in the bed and watched for 5 minutes.  It took a bit, but her oxygen slowly dropped to below 85% and her heart rate went up a little.  She didn’t feel any worse, but it was clear something was different.  We even tried swinging her legs over the edge of the bed and letting her sit like that, but it wasn’t much different.

Here’s the thing: I’m not sure this is anything new.  The few times she has gotten up over the last few days we unplug her oxygen sensor so she can walk away from the bed, and by the time we plug her back into the sensor, she’s lying on the bed.  We had never had her plugged in and vertical since she has arrived.  A couple of times getting up, she’s started to look really pale.  I think that this has happened a few times, but we’ve just not seen it.  I’m really glad we caught it so we can watch for it, but it certainly gave us a little scare.  The chest x-ray showed her pneumothorax has healed, which is great (but doesn’t explain the recent episode).  I think nothing new happened this evening, I think we just saw something that has been happening unobserved previously.  It is still concerning, but not as bad as originally feared, I think.

Angie’s doing just fine now.  Since everyone was so worried, the nurses wanted her on a mask, but she had just ordered dinner.  Eating was interesting.  She seems to do better lying down, so we reclined the bed, but that made it difficult to eat, so I fed her instead.  They let her put the nasal cannula back on and just hold the mask near her face and put it on between bites.  They wanted her to stay above 88% while she ate.  We were able to forgo the back-and-forth and just let the mask sit on her chest while I fed her.  She’s sitting now on the bed with her phone looking at facebook & such with sats between 90-92%, and she’s not wearing her mask (shh, don’t tell the nurse).

Now for the best part; this ought to give you a smile.  You’ve earned it by reading through this post.  So, Angie is on a “very low sodium diet” as per doctor’s orders.  The menu has a few items marked as low sodium, but she is very low sodium, so even some of those are off-limits.  Angie has had the turkey before, but of course she can’t have gravy.  Instead of just eating it dry, she decided to get creative.  She ordered some vegetable broth and mashed potatoes and just mixed them together to make her own gravy!  That’ll show those dieticians that are trying to foil our good flavor.  That’s why I love Angie.  Well, just one of the many reasons why…