Update: Mama's in the hospital

She's home, in her recliner, waiting for the commercial to do off so that she can watch her beloved Trail Blazers who are playing the New Jersey Nets. We're ahead 52-44, second half is starting now. The doctor said to double her daily LASIK and the potassium and to see her primary care physician in a week. I'm staying home with her tomorrow and will make the doctor appointment calls then.

Thanks for your prayers!


Here she is on December 25, 2007, standing at our building's front door, light snow falling.

When I woke up Friday night around 12:45 p.m. to go to the bathroom, she was still awake and asked me to come see if I thought she was wheezing and/or short of breath. She was, enough so that I called 911 and soon four firemen and two EMTs joined us in the apartment. The firemen left her to the EMTs who checked her out thoroughly, hearing noise in her lungs. They ran several EKGs which they didn't like the looks of, so they called Portland Providence Hospital--the one where she's been most often--and said we were on the way. I rode up front as we sped to the hospital, lights flashing and the siren in use whenever we came upon other vehicles. In the back, along with oxygen, she got some nitro and some LASIK, plus they'd given her a couple of aspirin to chew before they ever got her out of the bed.

In the ER they took a chest x-ray and saw fluid in her lungs. The EKGs didn't show anything significant going on with her heart. About four hours later we were in a room--on oxygen and with a telemetry hook-up in the gown's pocket so that they could monitor her at the nurses' station. Finally around 3:30 p.m. the hospitalist doctor stepped in and said his theory is congestive heart failure which means a weak heart that pumps inefficiently, causing fluid to leak into her lungs which causes the shortness of breath. So he ordered more LASIK and an echo cardiogram so that the function of her heart could be checked. By then we'd both had something to eat and several dozing naps, and Leland had come to the hospital. Lamont had to work, so did Kailey.

Leland brought me home because I was pretty much shot from lack of real rest. I ate supper and fell asleep off and on in my chair, finally going to bed at 9 p.m. This morning I woke up at 5:40 a.m. and started on the laundry. I've talked to Mama on the phone. The nurses are talking like she could come home today, so we've decided the easiest way to get her here is a cab because the doors will be wider and at the best height for her to get in and out of. I'll wait until I've had some lunch before I head that way on the bus, then if/when she gets released, we'll call the cab.

She's supposed to go to her primary care doctor tomorrow, the hematologist on Tuesday and the pulmonary doctor on Thursday. I don't know what this hospitalization means in relation to those appointments.

The blood count from the blood taken at the hospital shows that she is not anemic and doesn't at this time need a blood transfusion which is good news. And from reading about congestive heart failure, it appears that her increased fatigue could certainly be related to it, along with the Sjogren's Syndrome which also can cause fatigue.

All in all, Mama's outlook in the face of continuing fatigue which means she can not do very much around here to contribute to our lives makes her sad, guilty, upset and/or down in the dumps. Naturally, given her nature which is basically to make the best of any situation, she continues to struggle to enjoy life as much as she can. I've explained to her that her main job here at home is to keep herself from falling down--she's doing her best at that.

Y'all please add her, her condition, her doctors and us to your prayers.

Thank you.

Love y'all,

Lynette

Mama Update and Banana Cream Pie

Banana Cream Pie from 3 Doors Down Cafe, SE 37th and Hawthorne, Portland, Oregon!


I'm home, doing Laundry, but I've just talked with her on the phone. She told me she felt a little better--hooray! I asked her to ask the doctor to call me if he shows up before I can get there--I'm riding the bus today because both guys have to be at work from 9 a.m. until 10 p.m. at the earliest. And I thought I was tired!

Yesterday she walked twice in the hall, with a hospital walker whose wheel(s)--and I use that term loosely because you actually couldn't see them turning--made a sound so embarrassing that I told a nurse in the hallway, "That's the walker, not my Mama!" She was attached to an oxygen cylinder on wheels which, thankfully, made no sounds at all. She also sat up in the chair several times.

The only food she ate with any enthusiasm was a piece of banana cream pie from 3 Doors Down Cafe--Kathy and Dave sent it in one of those cute little white take-out boxes. Dave wrote "Get Well!" on it. The minute I mentioned it to her, she said, "I want some milk to go with it," so I pushed the button and ordered some lactose-free milk.

I'm off in a few minutes to put the stuff in the dryer.

Thanks again so much for all of your prayers and good wishes for each of us. We are truly blessed.

P.S. How 'bout them Dawgs! At this point, I really don't care about the season record, I only care about the 41-27 whupping Mississippi State put all over Ole Miss. (Sorry to my Ole Miss buds, but just think about it for a minute. Wouldn't you be just as obnoxiously excited?

Thanksgiving Day Mama Update

A 11/27/2009, Friday, update at the bottom.

Mama and Duncan, together in their recliner, taken August 19, 2008.


We do have a lot to be thankful for on this Thanksgiving Day, when it gets right down to it. Mama got to go to a regular room in the cardiac area around noon, which is good news. What's not very good news is that she was having a progressively harder time breathing than anyone wanted, most of all her.

The nurse there in the other room let the doctor know what her lungs sounded like and he prescribed Lasix which would make her pee a whole lot--there seemed to be too much fluid around her lungs which naturally made it more difficult to breathe. A few hours passed, she peed like a horse, sat up in one armed chair with her feet in another unarmed chair--which helped her lungs, too--got two puffs from an inhaler (something she uses now and then at home), and worked with a little device that Respiratory brought for her to blow into which would hopefully lead to coughing up some phlegm. She began to look better and breathe easier. In fact she told the nurse, in answer to "What should I tell the doctor about how you're breathing now?" "Tell him I'm better but not real good."

Thank goodness they're watching her very often there which meant that I could come home to Duncan without feeling too guilty. There's a slight, slight chance she'll get to come home tomorrow.

Oh, I couldn't find a plain electrical outlet in the new room, so I didn't get to plug in the computer--my battery won't hold a charge. I'm going to take it with me again tomorrow and keep looking for an outlet, maybe in the nearby lobby, and/or ask if it's OK to plug it into one of the red ones. There's an oscillating fan plugged into one of them, so maybe it will be OK. I didn't press it today--I was helping her go to the bathroom pretty often since she's not supposed to get up by herself yet.

Thanks again for being there with your love, prayers and good wishes.

11/27/2009 Update

She won't be going home today, maybe over the weekend or Monday even. She's breathing better but is still weak. The doctor wants her to sit up in the chair a good bit and walk in the hall some. Her heart muscle shows no permanent damage!

It took Duncan 50 minutes to decide to eat his breakfast this morning--he's such a little ol' man these days, wondering I'm sure where she is.

It was raining most of the night but the sun's out now--hooray!

A break from the vacation--Mama's in the hospital.

Mama, January 18, 2009


I always call her at lunch, so I called her about 12:15 p.m. on Tuesday. She answered the phone, and I asked if she'd taken a shower--I knew it was what she was planning to do. She said she had but then said she'd started to feel bad right at the end of it, so much so that she laid down on the bathroom floor for a while, then finally made her way to the bed and crawled under her blanket. I asked where she felt bad, and when she told me in her chest, along her left arm, underneath the left side of her chin and on her neck felt very uncomfortable. I immediately said that we need to get that checked, it could be her heart. She said wouldn't something have already happened if it was her heart--she'd felt bad for an hour probably. I said I don't know but I'm going to call Leland and get him to get me, then we would get her and head for the ER. The man in the cube next to mine at work hear me and offered to give me a ride to the apartment, so I called Leland and told him to meet me there. When I walked into her bedroom, she'd somehow managed to go back to the bathroom to get her sweater and underwear which she had put on before covering up again with the blanket. I helped her put on her slacks; when I helped her sit up to do that, she burped and said that she felt a little better, so I'm thinking, is this going to turn out to be indigestion? I got Duncan into his kennel just before Leland arrived. We got her to the hospital in no time, it seemed.

The triage nurse checked her pretty quickly and when she couldn't get an oxygen reading with one of those clip on finger things, we quickly went to a room in the ER for an EKG. It alarmed everyone--I could see it and thought it did not look like any I'd ever seen. All this time she was alert, answering questions, and had even walked down our three steps and acorss the sidewalk to the car!

Once they saw the EKG, the room filled with people all doing different things to get her ready for the cardiovascular lab for an angiogram. They had her chew up four baby aspirin--the nurse told her that she looked like a little bird and I said her shiny brown eyes added to that impression for me, the nurse grinned and said she agreed--and gave her a bigger dose of Plavix that she usually takes every day. By 2:05 p.m. she was rolled through those double doors. A little later on one of the nurses who had taken her there came back by and told us that they were getting her ready for the procedure, that she was in really good hands. Another one came by and said that we'd done the right thing, getting her to the hospital within two hours of when she started to hurt.

About 3:20 p.m., they rolled her by on the way to the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit, wide awake and having done well, the nurses said, going on to say that the doctor would be out soon. He came not long after and said that no complete blockages had been found on her heart, that the right coronary artery was 80% blocked and they'd opened it up with a stent, that it was located on her heart at the point that the EKG had pointed to as being where something had happened out of the ordinary, the other blood vessels on her heart looked pretty good, that they'd do some blood tests and an echo cardiogram to see if they could find out if she had any permanent damage to her heart muscle which would help to determine if she had indeed had a heart attack, that she ought to do well.

A little over 30 minutes later, we got to go into CICU to see her. Since she'd had the angiogram she had to stay flat on her back for at least four hours, until the places in her groin stopped bleeding. You know that were they put that instrument into you that they then snake up to your heart and look around, etc. She had to be poked more than once, so she had, I think the nurse said, four holes, less than the size of a straw but nevertheless still bleeding some. Mama asked me to stand by her head and feed her ice chips which I did. By 4:50 p.m. she decided that she was hungry. Providence Hospital has a sort of room service thing going on with their food, so I called and got her half a sliced turkey sandwich on a multi-grain bread with a bit of mayo, cranberry sauce on the side, and some black coffee. I cut the sandwich into bite-sized pieces--she ate all of everything and then told Leland and me to go on home.

Duncan was glad to see me because the little guy was hungry! He's asleep now in the recliner. I'm watching "So You Think You Can Dance" prior to watching "Dancing with the Stars." I'll be back at the hospital by 9 a.m. tomorrow to find out what else is known about her condition. I'll get back with you at some point tomorrow. I can't call out from the CICU--you must turn off your phones because they could interfere with monitors, etc.

We all thank you for your prayers!

Love y'all,

Mama Update #5, and an easily understood sign, or is it?

Mama's cadre of doctors want her to recuperate over the weekend while they evaluate her problem(s) and the possible solution(s). She's a bit less dizzy, pretty weak, slowly getting back her appetite, and ready to do whatever they tell her to do so that she can eventually get back the life that she had. We're all proud of her and her attitude. She's getting really good care at Providence Hospital on NE Glisan.



"Stop Here Until Door Closes." Straightforward wording for a rather large sign. For some reason, though, I'm getting another message from it. I'm not sure but I'll just bet there's a garage at the other end of that ramp, a garage in a high-priced condo building. I do know for sure that the building is in the Portland's Pearl District which is a high-priced part of the city, from all aspects. Anyway, I think the sign's there to make whoever has the "key" to the door stop at that point to prevent any other vehicles' piggy-backing into the private garage. For some reason the sign also says to me "If you don't have the key, you can't get in." This raises two questions in my mind. One, do you have to "get in" to feel successful? And second, why in the world am I having such a deep sort of thought? It must be the exhaustion. Or is it that I'm 60 now and may be more prone to deep thoughts?