Mom's in Shands Hospital, 13 Oct

Hi, Everybody! On Friday 12th, I dialed 911 and an ambulance took Mom and Ruth to the Emergency Room around midnight. Mom was feeling nauseous in the morning and Ruth said that she threw up everything she tried to eat. I helped out at the church office and then went to WalMart for an oil change for Purple Blue. The pharmacist at WalMart recommended their over-the-counter Anti-Nausea concoction. Mom was able to nibble a little lunch when I came back with the concoction. Then we decided to go out for a proper lunch at Arby's. She ate some curly fries, a small part of a roast beef sandwich with a hard crust, and half an apple turnover. She was winded more than usual when we came back home but she seemed to settle okay. In fact, she was asking when we were going to have dinner, at about 8pm. After several trips to the bathroom (walking about 15 ft) her breathing was very labored - a lot of wheezing. She decided to go to bed at about 11pm but could not lie down for long. She was sitting in the rocking chair when she talked to Richard and told him that she had no problems lying down. When she tried to lie down again she got right up. That's when I called the Emergency Room at Shands and they recommended that I call 911. I followed the ambulance to the hospital. We must have talked to ten different groups of doctors. The x-rays weren't clear. A CAT scan showed that most of her right lung was filled with fluid, hence the wheezing. They saw a calcified crack in a right rib and thought that might be a source of fluid buildup. One team of doctors went back for a closer look when I told them again about the cracked tenth rib on the left that caused Mom to be quite inactive for several weeks. Most of them felt that it was reasonable for a person with a rib problem to engage in shallow breathing thus inviting fluid and bacteria to the unused parts of the lungs. A cardiogist group heard murmurs and sticky valves and was ready to move Mom to the Cardiology Unit for observation and a better sonogram. They thought Mom was suffering from congestive heart failure. At one point a Filipino chaplain came and he said a prayer with us. Mom was quite pleased. Eventually they decided on draining the fluid from the right lung to ease Mom's breathing difficulty. The first attempt with a thin catheter drew out about 500 ml of pinkish fluid, at about ten this morning. One doctor was too quick to rule out infection because he said that the fluid would have been milky. Most of the others were not so sure. Dr. Cynthia Leaphart came later to say that she would ask her supervisor for permission to insert a chest tube to drain the rest of the fluid. While talking to us about the procedure Mom kept interrupting saying that she looked and sounded like Cindy. When Dr Leaphart finally got the okay she was called to an emergency in the Surgery Unit upstairs. It was way past noon when she was free again. Then they brought in a patient to be resuscitated in the next cubicle and the Emergency Room Charge Nurse helping Dr Leaphart had to go over to help the resuscitating team. The end result was that Mom's thrashing caused some fluid to spill on the floor. There were 600 ml in the container and about 100 ml in the tubing when we went in to see her. The Charge Nurse apologized for not being there to help and said that about 1000 ml of the fluid were drawn and more should be draining for the next couple of days. Mom was complaining of pain in the incision area and they gave her some morphine. We are waiting for a room in the Medical Unit to Mom to be moved into. Whitney, the Charge Nurse was a former student of mine on the North Campus. Sorry we couldn't telephone everybody. Take care. Love, jonah