Day Seven

Joy had another restless night with little sleep but tolerated the Bipap machine so that was good. She had another routine "bronc" which revealed the onset of pneumonia but to what extent, we do not know at this time. Antibiotics were added immediately. Her morning walk was relatively brief and her "numbers" fell drastically, so she quickly returned to her bed. Her nurse and PT specialist decided to hook her up to dual monitors for the afternoon walk to ensure accurate reads. If they knew the numbers were absolutely accurate, they would "push" her a little more than otherwise.

Joy said she overheard her surgeon talking with residents in the hallway about her new lungs and indicated they may have come from a young male adult that fell and was trapped in a crevice for an extended period of time. The doctor indicated that these lungs were more compromised than ideal (fluid, I believe) and may be hampering her recovery. Again, this info was overheard and not directly told to Joy which is doubtful that it ever will be. Joy can choose to use the compromised lung theory to justify slower progress or she can decide to fight even harder. Right now, she is not happy about life so her fight needs to continue to surface if she wants to get through this. My guess is that she will but, this is really a struggle. I know a lung transplant will not be in my future.

The epidural was removed this morning and pain is now controlled manually through injections. Her afternoon walk was more optimistic than the morning and "numbers" were maintained favorably. Even the oxygen level reached a 100% a couple times although this was on 12 lpm at 55%. But, it is a start. She walked about a 100 feet total with one rest stop. The short term goal is about 300-500 feet two or three times a day. Ultimate discharge from the hospital will require a combined total walk distance of one mile. A challenge. The RN and PT were really good walk coaches, which helped. I was allowed to follow immediately behind with her chair, just in case. So, we spent a little more than average time with her today.

Overall, a cautiously optimistic day and we recognize this as a very slow and methodical process with back steps more frequent than forward steps which should reverse over time. The pain injections allowed her to sleep more which is good.

She is not interested in much news or anything else so your messages will be forwarded to her in due time.