Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Indiana Jones'ing this hospital

(Written Feb. 8, 2011)

In the last week, I have not only been my Dad’s nurse, but also his travel companion. Our adventures included a CT scan, ultrasound and echocardiogram. A chest x-ray was also done, but he flew solo on that mission.

Unfortunately, my Dad was continuing to have random fevers earlier on in the week. As the blood cultures kept coming back negative, the doctors were trying to find another possible site or cause of infection.

The CT results showed a clot in my Dad’s lung- a pulmonary embolism. The clot is small therefore the doctors are not treating it yet (with anti-coagulants), just monitoring.

My Dad must focus on deep breathing (some would say ‘yoga breathing’), because his shallow breathing and regular supine position, are not allowing the bottom of his lungs to be used which is causing them to not receive enough oxygen; therefore the little branches in at the bottom of his lungs are collapsing. The physiotherapist has worked with him and taught him breathing techniques he must practice. She has also shown him exercises he must to do to prevent clots from forming and keep the oxygenated blood moving around his body, which will also provide energy.

Chest x-ray= clear

Ultrasound (extremities)= no clots

As my Dad’s blood counts (especially his WBC) weren’t coming up as quick as we or the medical team would have liked, the doctors decided to inject Filgrastim (or GCFS) into my Dad’s abdomen every morning to stimulate the proliferation of white blood cells. This, along with a couple days of transfusions have given my Dad the boost he needed before his marrow was able to produce blood cells on its own. On day 23, his counts finally came up! Not quite within normal limits yet, but getting there! Hasta la vista, transfusions.

Today, we journeyed through the underground workings of the foothills hospital, to get to our echocardiogram appointment. The CT results from earlier this week showed a possible genetic defect with his heart. When you are growing inside a tummy, you use oxygen obtained from your mother's blood through the placenta. As you can’t breathe real air, only a small amount of blood needs to go through the lungs, so the path by which blood circulates through the heart and lungs is different in a fetus. The mixing of the venous and arterial blood occurs through the foramen ovale, which is a temporary hole between the right and left atria. This hole is supposed to close within a couple of days or weeks of birth, but the CT suspected otherwise. After 30 minutes of watching my human anatomy text books come to life on the ECHO computer, the doctors found no such defect! His heart is a normal as can be. FYI- seeing my Dad’s heart, watching his valves open and shut and hearing the blood getting squished through the arteries and veins….was my HON

1 comment:

  1. Sam, thank you for your enlighting and detailed report on your papa. Jerry - Really, really happy to hear that things are postitive.

    Hugs,

    Karen

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