GeekBlog
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Kim, more Kim, and almost nothing but Kim so help me Kim
As I sit here, waiting for word, from pickles for me to come get him...
I thought i'd update people whith what I knoe from last night.
To kep Kim's blood preassure up high enough to weather the 24/7 dialysis, the have to pump her full of dopamine, milrinone, argatroban, and other medcines...
The problem is they are giving her MORE fluids than they are able to ake off.
The reason being, everytime the up the therapy on the dialysis to remove more fluids, her preassure drops, which means higher dose of dopamine....
On the good side of things....
Kim's back.
She's not happy at the state of things but she's not mad @ me or Pickles
She's awake, fully cognative, and even trying to crack a joke here and there... which is hard over the sound of the BiPaP mask thingy...
N-E-Ways, I wll try and keep everyone up to dates as best I can.
-Piper
Posted from moBlog – mobile blogging tool for Windows Mobile
Monday, June 02, 2008
Course of treatment, Part 1
Just an FYI....
Pickles and I have an apointment with Kim's doctors @ UPenn to discuss the corse of treatment....
Fingers Crosed
-Piper
Posted from moBlog – mobile blogging tool for Windows Mobile
Updates and latenight consent....
Sorry about the lack of blog updates, but i've been spending time in the chatroms again and relaying information through there..
Kim's stll n and out mentally and has been really tred a lot....
She's back on the 24/7 Dalysis because when they tried the every other day kind her blood preassure and temp were too low and they weren't actually able to remove any fluid...
As a side affect of the new round of dialysis they thnk they know why the mental confusion.
They send some blood work to the lab and found the acid levels in her blood are too high.
So they are going to put her on a mask to boost the oxygen levels in her lungs and hopefully reduce the acid levels.
Well the reason I know of this development at 1:15am my tme is that inorder to make sure the mask is helping (the next step being intibation) they need to put in an arterial catheter in her wrist, or just do needle pricks every 15mins or so.
The arterial catheter has a lot of positive sides to it, lke being able to measure diferent preassures, but also has one bad side. They need to immobilze her arm so that she can't pull it out accdentally.
I've asked them to put the arteral catheter n her left arm as that's the arm where her pic line is, but just remembered she's left handed..
She's ggonna be mad at me again when she wakes up :(
oh well... I've done a decent bit of writng last couple days.... mybee it'll be redy to post in couple weeks.
-HuGgLeS-
-Scared One
Posted from moBlog – mobile blogging tool for Windows Mobile
Labels: Consent, Dialysis, kim, Power of Attorney, Stuff, UPenn
Thursday, May 29, 2008
The fog that is rhenal failure.....
Just a little middle of the night update from me....
As it stands now, Kim is still in a standard sinus rhythm. Her blood preassure is good for her but a little low from 'normal' and her heart rate is good.
She was off the Dialysis today for a couple hours.... They needed to prep her for and then take her to the cath lab for tests...
Shortly before she went back on, she started to really fade mentally..
That's an extremely scary thing to watch....
Either tomorrow or Friday I get to play MULE and pickup the cd's of Kim's CT scans and Ultrasounds and take them to UPenn... I'm more than happy to do it even if it means about 130-150 miles of driving round trip when all is said and done... It's all for Kim after all...
I talked to one of our favorite people @ Deborah today. One of the 3 primary people we know are always loking out for Kim's best interests. she says that had the Bi-V (Bi-Ventricular) ICD been, well, I guess "installed" i(best word I could come up with) that yes Kim wouldn't have had the optimizer turned on because it would have taken over for the Optimizer.
She said that she would have been just as confident if Kim had gotten the Bi-V ICD as she is with the Optimizer, and also added "Study or no study, remember that you always have my number"...
I really do love that place....
And so far, everyone @ UPenn is just as great and just as awesome!
-HuGgLeS- from a Scared yet Optomistic Little Girl....
-Piper
Posted from moBlog – mobile blogging tool for Windows Mobile
Labels: Bi-Ventricular ICD, Dialysis, kim, Mule, Optimizer, Stuff, UPenn
Monday, May 26, 2008
Cardioversion and Dialysis and Doctors, Oh My!
Well lass than 1 hour ago, I gave 'phone consent' for Kim to have a procedure called Cardioaversion.
No, Kim's not 'gone' again mentally, but she was actively having Dialysis done, and didn't feel right getting consent from her while that was happening.
The cardioaversion is something we've been waiting on/expecting for a while and I know that i've bloged about it more than enough recently so I won't bore u with details of that again...
But I can finally tell you more about the TEE...
For the TEE what they are going to do is send a ultrasound probe down the feeding tube which is still in (because she has a sore throat causing her problems eating solid food). Then since the end of the feed tube lies right next to the heart they can get a clear view t look to se if there are any bloodclots that might be hiding in the far corners...
That's what we know for now. The bad heart rythm could come back after the cardioaversion, but we ned to do something...
And I have to say, the future always looks brighter when you have an aggressive plan of action!
-Happy and Brave(ishk) Little Girl!
Posted from moBlog – mobile blogging tool for Windows Mobile
Labels: cardioaversion, Consent, kim, Stuff, TEE, UPenn
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Allllll Aboaaaaaaaard! Next Stop, U.Penn!
As I sit here, we are curently waiting on medical transport to arrive.
Kim's being transferred to UPen's CHF/Cardiac Transplant clinic...
Kim's doctors here @ deborah have been in contact with their counterparts over @ UPenn and said that sending her there is worth a shot.
UPenn has close to the same reputation of excelence as Deborah but is capeable of doing a lot more for her.
Firstly, is that they will evaluate her and get her put on a transplant list NOW, before it becomes and absolute necessity. This will make it easier for her to recive a transplant if a viable organ becomes available...
Also, UPen will be able to look at, and take steps towards the mass on her Kidney... Deborah is not capeable of more than saying 'Yup, there is a mass on her Kidney' as that's not what they are here for.
Deborah is a Cardio Pulminary rehab/research hospital mainly and fear they are getting close to the end of their abilities as far as Kim's treatment is concerned...
N-E-Ways, I'll update more when the transport happens, but it's currently expcted to happen about 5:45pm EDT, but who knows.
-Piper (a brave lil girl acording to some!)
(Thx KP and CL for the never ending moral support)
Posted from moBlog – mobile blogging tool for Windows Mobile
Labels: Heart Transplant' CHF, Stuff, University of Pennsylvania, UPenn
