Prayers requested....

Tony M wrote: »

She MUST be a real fighter!

Glad to hear she improved.

But why can't those people find where she's bleeding from! Crazy.

Yes, that’s been a hot button topic as you can imagine. It’s an interesting scenario actually and I learned A LOT!!! I work in the sports medicine field and consult with many surgeons and specialties and my older brother is a pediatrician. So coming at it from varying perspectives revealed more questions than answers a lot of times. The staff here is AMAZING. They even let my brother (who has privileges here) and I stay for rounds each day so these situations were discussed with no less than 20 people with varying expertise. Here is the answer to that question specifically;
* Initially, when she crashed and coded, they rushed her to OR and pulled 4 liters of blood from her abdomen. They had the general surgeon who performed the initial operation and he called in another vascular surgeon (I think) to look at it with him. He saw some “oozing” from the gall bladder but nothing that was actively worrisome.
* She was hooked up to eleven drops yesterday.....each time they messed with something they would have to calculate or try to oredict what it would do to influence BP, breathing, pain, sedation, etc. It was literally like watching an episode of House when he is trying to figure out the right diagnosis.
* That was her second surgery, losing 4 liters of blood and being under anesthesia for close to 5 hours and a 12 hour time frame. Not to mention the risk of infection and the new would from the base of sternum to below her belly button. The risk of infection just went up.
* While monitoring her BP and labs, it was apparent that she was either “equilibrating” very slowly due to the massive hemorrhage or she had a bleed that was slowing down....
* Her levels fluctuated, sometimes to worrisome levels, but patience and more blood rebounded her stats.
* When she would destabilize, the discussion was always “should we risk another surgery?” The belly looked good after suctioning the 4 liters out and had two surgeons eyes on it with no active bleeding that they could see. So while still losing vitals each time she received blood she rebounded. They had a threshold at which they would go open her up and see if she reached a certain point but thankfully that never happened.
* The decisions made were to let her body try to clot wherever it was leaking and that happened in our favor.

It really was like a chess game - if we do this, this will happen. So how do we get this result and not compromise other systems, organs or functions. The intensivist is probably was one of the most brilliant people o have ever met. The pulmonary surgeon was a genius. We were so lucky that this happened on their shifts.

I know I am probably not explaining it well enough but the verbal dialogue between the doctors was like a high level chess match......and we could tell in those conversations that they had my moms best interest at heart. It was an emotionally harrowing roller coaster of emotions but it turned out to be one of the most amazing experiences of my life. My mom is the strongest lady I know......and hates the protein laced jello they are forcing her to eat!!!!

Just a small update - mom got her catheter removed today and has had no problems at all. She has A LOT of fluid retained due to all of the iv’s and transfusions, etc. She has had difficulty catching her breath so she was on supplemental Oxygen. They removed that today and she has done very well without it. PT and OT visits today went very well. She still has the abdominal drain, but will hopefully get removed tomorrow. Plans are that she is likely to be discharged tomorrow!!!! I can’t really comprehend being on your death bed 3 days ago and being discharged tomorrow.......but I am not complaining. I don’t understand it but am very thankful and grateful. Thanks to everyone for the thoughts and prayers