Angie & Jim

The Home Stretchby Jim

The doctors just came and chatted with us for a bit.  Dr. Rogers, who has been heading up Angie’s care while she’s here, talked to us about the plan for the day and mentioned the plan for getting home.  That is good news, but we’re not out of the woods yet.  Here’s the scoop:

They’re doing a CT Scan this morning (just took her away, actually) to check her liver and other organs.  Her fluid is much lower and she’s only drained about 100 ccs since last night.  Dr. Rogers said they are going to lower her dosage of the drugs that make her lose fluids (which should help with the blood pressure).  Her oxygen saturation levels have been looking good, but she’s on a lot of extra oxygen.  He said he wants her levels to get back to normal without any oxygen before she goes home.  He also wants her able to get up and walk around without it completely wearing her out.  So, those are our goals for going home: weaning her off of the oxygen over the course of the day (as her levels permit), and getting up and taking walks.  We can do that.

Over the first 24-36 hours of being here, Angie lost about 4.5 L of fluid, which is about 10 lbs of weight.  This was after she’d lost several pounds in just the last couple months.  She’s down to under 100 lbs, which is definitely in the “underweight” classification.  We were concerned about it, so we’ve asked about getting a nutritionist to stop by and consult with us to find a way to healthily (is that a word?) get her back up to normal weight.  We believe that with all the fluid that was building up inside her, it was putting extra pressure on her digestive system and making her have very little appetite.  When she did eat, she would eat very little before feeling full.  I’m hoping that now that the fluid is gone, she’ll bounce back to her usual self and her appetite will return to normal.

After the doctors left, and I think to try and gauge her levels, Angie wanted to get up to brush her teeth.  It may have been a bit premature, because it really took a toll on her.  Just as she sat back down and was catching her breath, the CT scan people came to cart her away.  She got on the bed and they wheeled her out.  I will post again after I’ve heard the results from the CT scan.  Thanks for reading.