Hospital 🏥 Day 7 Update

She was moving her arms and legs more this morning. It was usually when she was agitated. Since this morning, she hasn't moved around as much and she is still not waking up.

She is still on high flow oxygen for her breathing (tachypnea and she will also desat). She has so much mucous and congestion, but it is slowly improving. She is still getting breathing treatments, cough assist and chest pt.

She is also still hanging on to her urine. She will pee but she is holding on the majority and having to be cathed every 6 hours to empty her bladder. They will get an average of 550 mL each time (that's 18.5 oz).

Her labs look good. 👍

• Sodium 141 (normal range is 134-143)
• Potassium 3.4 (3.5-5) This is a tad low but is much better than the 2’s that she had been in.
• BUN is down to 21 (normal 8-21) - kidney related lab.
• Creatinine 0.64 (0.2-0.7) Her normal baseline is at 0.6 so she is close to what her norm is and this is also a kidney related lab. Karla is looking good.
• Albumin 2.7 (normal 3.5-5.4) Albumin is a protein created by the liver and helps maintain fluid balance. Think of it as an "uber" for medications, vitamins and hormones in the blood. The level tells how the liver and kidneys are working and also shows nutritional status.
• Tacro level is back to normal. This is for one of her antirejection medications. It had been high but is back to normal range and we shouldn’t have to adjust her medication any more for the time being. Her level is 6.6 and they want to keep her 5-8.
• Blood culture results came back today with no growth in 5 days. That means she does not have any bacteria or anything bad in her blood.

She is still running a low grade fever on and off. I thought we were on our way to being 24 hours fever free and she decided to raise that temp again.

She had two seizures two nights ago but they increased one of her seizure meds yesterday and so far she has been seizure free.

They started her on feeds yesterday and are slowly increasing the amount and rate. So far she is tolerating her “milkshake” well.

Her arm isn’t as swollen where she has/had the DVT (blood clot). They are going to stop the IV heparin (blood thinner) and change her over to Lovenox (blood thinner) injections.

Initially, the PICU docs had said we would likely see mental status improvements as sodium decreased. We have not seen much improvement at all despite sodium now being within normal range. Neuro came by yesterday and said that it could just take time for her brain to catch up because she had so much going on and was so sick.

Her neurological status is scored using what is called the Glascow Coma Scale (GCS). It uses 3 things for scoring, eye, verbal and motor response. Each of the three get a score and the overall score is the sum of the three. The range is 3-15. 3 is the worse (coma) and 15 the best (fully awake and alert).

Mild is 13–15

Moderate: 9–12

Severe: 8 or less

Today her score is a 7 which is what it has been consistently the last week.

I wanted to take a moment to say THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart to everyone praying, everyone who has messaged, texted, checked in, sent food, offered to bring food, sent dollars for snacks, food and gas, those sending good vibes and thoughts…..thank you to everyone who is doing what they do. It means the world to me. Especially your prayers, they mean more than you know.

When Rick came up yesterday, he brought some things that I had delivered to the house. Even at home, I am only a morning coffee drinker. I make my coffee with a protein shake and it satisfies me enough until the afternoon or evening. I order something to eat through the Le Bon Eats app where they bring your order to the room. Here in the PICU you cannot eat in the room, and I go to the Family Room. I do not go downstairs to the cafeteria. My knees and achilles are in constant protest and it hurts to walk. I don’t like being away from the room long and it takes me too long to get downstairs and back to the room. Rick usually eats at home before he comes up and will sometimes eat here with me in the evenings or he will eat when he gets home. I do have protein bars, protein chips and a few non protein snacks (if you haven’t tried the Drizzilicious mini rice cakes, you should!).

I am just ready for her to wake up!!! I am ready to see her feisty self, back to her normal state.

Thank you for your continued thoughts, prayers, good vibes, and all the things. I feel them and I appreciate them.