Unanswered Question and A Look Ahead

The attending physician for the ICU performed a bronkoscopy on Cathy about 1 hour ago. Unfortunately she was not able to see what she wanted to see. She was able to see down as far as Cathy's vocal cords, which looked fine. She was not able to pass the scope down the airway far enough to answer the question about swelling. She did say that "swelling is not typical in this setting". She is going to have a surgeon from the head, neck & throat group look to see what he thinks about the tightness around the vent tube. The attending is still fairly confident about being able to extibate Cathy tomorrow. They are going to reduce the assistance pressure to 6 in the morning (I was wrong about stopping at 10). After Cathy adjusts to this setting they will extibate her (knock on wood). Cathy is still struggling to get comfortable with the current ventilator setting (8). Her blood pressure has been elevated most of the day. The doctors believe the high blood pressure and Cathy's discomfort with the current setting can be attributed to anxiety. They are now having to give Cathy more sedation & morphine than what she has received the past couple days.


The infectious disease doctor from the transplant team also stopped by just before the bronkoscopy. He confirmed that for two sets of cultures in a row (taken 5 & 6 days ago), no more virus has turned up. In two or three weeks they will draw more cultures. (Since I assume we will be long discharged by then, I assume that these cultures will be taken at a clinic visit). If these cultures are negative for virus, Cathy will be re-listed for transplant.