Well, this time it’s not my father in the hospital.
It’s my mother.
And it’s very bad.
She’s had a stopped heart for at least three minutes this morning, and is suffering from not a true infarction, but a condition where part of the heart seems to have stopped beating, and responding to the SA node. The good news is that a patient that survives while this is happening can usually recover.
The bad news is that my mom has a whole lot of other problems going on. Biggest is that her lungs are filling with fluid, and she hasn’t been exchanging gases at all well. She’s on a respirator, and at one point they had to run it past the normal max. There have been some incremental improvements since then, but it’s slow, and we’re very much in a waiting game, now.
As for the title… I’ve begun working on doing something about my health. I have made a goal, recently, to make sure that I outlive my parents.
Be careful what you wish for.
Yikes! Best wishes to you and your mom…I know how tense it is in those initial hours and days, waiting to see if they’re going to make it through, and how those little bits of news can make or break you. I hope the good news keeps coming, just like it did for me with my dad, and that your mom comes home and pulls through it like my dad did.
Again, thanks to everyone who has passed on their good wishes. They are much appreciated.
She’s made it through the night. There are still problems, including some bile that had to be removed. (I’m not sure from where, though.) And the ICU personnel are not thrilled with mom’s bowel movements.
But they’re talking about taking her off the respirator and letting her breathe on her own. So that’s an improvement. But it’s not clear how things will turn out. We’re still very much up in the air.
Still, compared to the gut punch of being told she had to have CPR, and that they had still been having trouble keeping her blood oxygenated, I’ll welcome these complications. She’s still alive.
I was in hospital recently, with something much less serious then your mom has, and even I got a little disoriented, and (I can now admit it) a bit petulant. Little things, like going to the bathroom the way I wanted to go, mean a lot when I felt my dignity and autonomy was at stake.
I understand just what you mean. I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to use a bedpan. Sometimes you have to accept it. And it’s still heartening that my mom doesn’t she had to accept it.
Well, off to see her today, and taking my father too. I’ll check in again later tonight.
What does this mean? If the staff have shown or expressed any displeasure in helping her with this, they need to be reported. :mad:
The bile may have been removed using a nasogastic tube. I am not sure why they would need to remove bile at this point, but NG tubes are often placed when a patient is on the ventilator. If they get her off the vent quickly, and she can stay off it, she will resume normal eating (after the NG tube is removed). I’m not altogether sure that she has an NG tube, but it seems most likely, given what you’ve shared here.
She has a long way to go, but has come a long way. I hope her recovery remains smooth.
Whoa! I’d meant that they were concerned by the condition of her bowel movement - and what that might indicate about her health. AFAIK no one at the hospital has been anything other than helpful and professional.
Yeah, she’s on an NG tube. Right now they’re reducing the “peep,” and seeing how that affects her oxygen levels.
I’ve seen her now, and compared to when I saw her passed out yesterday, seeing her grumpy, and frustrated with my inability to read her notes, is a huge improvement. She’s not looking “good.” But when my sister came out after seeing her the other night, saying that she looked awful, I had a very different image. Movement is lovely. Purposeful movement even more so.
