Tough night... Tough morning...

About 2am this morning, mom's heart rate went up. Way up - to 160. We haven't really been tracking her heart rate because it hasn't been an issue, but we know that it should have been around 60 or 70. Last night was alarming enough that it freaked dad out. He asked the doctor if he should call us kids. Dr. Lyn-Kew (correct spelling) told him "no". The fact is, mom has took a turn - in the wrong direction - and she is "sicker" right now. The stress of everything affected her heart rate. Apparently, it's pretty common and they were able to control it with medication. Since then, it has been stable.

At 4am her temp went up to 102.7. Blood cultures were taken to test for sepsis. The results will take 24/48 & 72 hours. Urine was also tested and that came back negative. By about 6:20am, her temp was down to 100 and then 99.4 at 7:35am. At noon, her temperature was 97.8 - *whew* back to normal.

Dr. Lyn-Kew, her Pulmologist, talked to us about her most recent chest xray. She has new pneumonia in her lower right lung caused by aspiration, which is a result of her inability to swallow and cough up the junk in chest. He has asked us to get together and discuss options of what to do in the case that they have to put her on a ventilator. He also mentioned the possibiliy of performing a tracheostomy. These things will not happen sooner than Monday unless an emergency situation should arise. We have asked if a selective tracheostomy is possible and Dr L said that it is, but not in her current condition. We need to see if her blood pressure improves (it's been low since I arrived this morning). Hopefully her condition will improve enough that we can be pro-active in getting her this option.

Right now, she seems to be resting comfortably. Her heart rate looks good, as does her oxygen level. Her blood pressure is still low, but improving (with the help of fluids, they think she was dehydrated and this might have caused the LBP). She is much less responsive and has hardly opened her eyes, but we're told that this is also expected with her worsened condition. They did take a blood gas lab to make sure those levels were okay and we were told they were. This is really good because if they were not okay, they might have had to put a tube in her throat (ventilator) to help her breathe.

In addition, she seemed to be having stomach pains and they took an xray of her stomach to see if they can figure that out. In the meantime, they have stopped her feeding tube.

In the whole scope of things, this is of little importance - but I woke up this morning to a leaking boiler and a flooded basement. I've never been one to ask "Why me?" - but I did ask "Why now?".

Here's to having faith that there is a plan. Please pray for her condition to improve and please pray for my dad.

Thank you.

xox,
Tommy