Extra Credits

When I walked into Cathy's room this afternoon she was sitting up in the high-backed chair, on the trach collar, taking a pneumo vest treatment. What did not fit in the picture was the upset look on her face. Because she was in the middle of the pneumo vest treatment, she was not immediately able to tell me what was bothering her. The pneumo vest is a cloth-like vest that inflates around her torso. After it is inflated, the vest vibrates to loosen up the secretions in Cathy's new lung. Cathy does not care for this treatment (that's a mild version of her true feelings). She is supposed to take this treatment three times a day for a minimum of fifteen minutes each. Here is the rub: Cathy controls the treatment by squeezing a bulb. She squeezes for a few minutes to activate the vibrations, then lets up to give herself short a break. After fifteen minutes, or after she has had enough, she stops the treatment herself. Evidently while taking this treatment this morning, Cathy thought she would get the day's treatments out of the way in one sitting. So, she endured forty-five minutes of the treatment in one sitting. Wrong - one forty-five minute treatment is not the same as three fifteen minute treatments. The look I saw on her face was the angst over putting up with the extra thirty minutes and not 'getting the credit'. She was sitting through a treatment that, in her mind, she had already endured.

Cathy sat up in the high-back chair all day. She has been on the trach collar for a little over thirty-eight hours. Her blood gasses are holding at good levels. Her blood's pH however is heading a little low (acidic). Tonight she is going to be put back on the ventilator to rest her lungs overnight. She is so close to becoming independent of the ventilator.

Cathy went for a walk today! The physical therapist took Cathy for a walk outside of her room, back and forth in front of the nurses station. When I told her how great that was, she immediately corrected me. "That was not great, that was awesome!" She is right, I stand corrected.

The dermatologist was by Cathy's room this morning to perform a biopsy of her sore. We probably will not know the results for a couple days.

I neglected to mention in yesterday's update that Cathy was moved to a different room, again. She is still in the cardio-thoracic surgical ICU. This room has an excellent view of Westwood, Bel Air and Santa Monica - A light show at night and a view to the ocean on a clear day.