Friday, May 8th - Update

Here is the latest report from the doctors. Wednesday night mom had a lot of sudden bleeding from the left chest tube. Previously it had only minimal drainage and was primarily being used for the anti fungal lovage. They had to give her 3 units of blood and took her down for a CT scan where they saw lots of fluid in the left plural space. When they took her down into the operating room they removed lots of coagulated blood but were unable to find the source.

There are three possible explanations for the sudden bleeding, 1 - that the anti fungal medication (Which they have stopped) is causing irritation. This is unlikely since they administer this treatment frequently. 2 - aspergillosis mold is angioinvasive and likes to go into the blood vessels. This can cause spontaneous bleeding. 3 - when being moved around the chest tube can shear inside the lung and cause bleeding.

When they opened her up yesterday Dr. Ardehali did note that the left lung looked better. Still significantly bad but better. They believe that the positive pressure from the ventilator at night has helped open up the left lung more and its encouraging that even as she had bad bleeding, her oxygen levels remained high. The right lung is doing the work for both sides. 

Dealing with the blood clots is also complicated since she has 3 and a history of getting blood clots when off of the blood thinner. However. The blood thinner can increase the risk of bleeding. They will be discussing the plan of action in the next 48 hours. The bleeding she has indicates an  issue somewhere that they are working to find. They have had complicated cases like this in the past and believe its a bump in the road but are aggressively pushing to get her off the ventilator. She is on the high flow for the day and will be back to the ventilator tonight. She was unable to walk since she felt too weak / dizzy but they have her sitting up in the chair. Her pain seemed manageable  today.