Tuesday, April 28th - Update

Talked to the doctor. He gave a really good breakdown of what has happened. 

Saturday they went too low on the ventilator/ too long on the high flow. By Sunday she was in a lot of pain and needed more medication which they thought is what caused her breathing to get worse. By Sunday evening they realized it was the medication but something else since her stats dropped and she couldn’t be on the high flow at all. Her ventilator setting went to full support. The ct yesterday showed the left lung has fully collapsed. They don’t know specifically when that happened since the X-ray doesn’t show that too well. Lots of mucus in the left lung (he said it was “coated” with mucus.) “The ct was concerning” During the bronchoscopy they pulled out a lot from the left lung and it looks to have reinflated from the X-ray but we don’t know how accurate that is. He did say that they are going off of her stats and she is back to tolerating the high flow. He thought the left lung looked substantially better. Ct also showed fluid buildup in the plural spaces but after an ultrasound they ruled out the chest tube since they believe the procedure is too high risk and the fluid looks to be more gelatinous then liquid. They will leave it be for now. 

The road ahead is not easy. They have to be a lot more aggressive with the mucus clearing methods to prevent any build up. The doctors all have differing opinions on what to do and there is little agreement which has lead to lots of plans changing and he wanted to be fully transparent on how complex her case is. 

He thinks she is back to the same lung function as Sunday now. But again doesn’t not know how fast we can progress. They just have to keep finding her limit and draining the fluids. 

He was really great at acknowledging how much she has been through and how tough it all is. He was sorry and told her everyone on the team was sorry for what she has gone through but wanted her to keep up hope that she is getting better. Big picture is that she is progressing and getting better, even if it isn’t at fast as we all want. He hopes they ease the restrictions of visitors soon but had no timeframe as to when it would happened. 

After FaceTimed her and she looked so much better. A lot more aware and clear eyed. Thanks for the support during this extremely challenging time. Glad mom is feeling better and made it through today.