Saturday night update 10/1

Not much change since this morning's update. I did find out that they had to give her some water down the nose tube to the stomach, and she vomited up a lot of it earlier this morning. She had some restraint cuffs on her wrists (not tied down, though) as a reminder to not pull her tracheostomy hose off. I noticed that there was a bag with the antibiotic Piperacillin-Tazobactan, which I believe is one of the pseudomonas is somewhat sensitive to. Her respirations went all the way down to 15 per minute tonight, cardiac index went up to 5.2 at one point, heart rate today that I saw was 115-140, temps 99.8-102.8, blood pressure was good, the lowest I saw being 89 systolic. She was more awake tonight than this morning or afternoon. She was moving her arms a bit more, opening her eyes more, and even trying to show off how she can move her legs & ankles a little.

I happened to see one of the resident doctors in the lobby today, and we talked about Denise. She echoed what the nurse said earlier today: Denise is doing better today than yesterday. I asked her what she thought the "magic bullet" was as far as treatment that helped Denise turn around. She had about the same thing to say as the uber-doctor: nothing, really. Other than changing around some antibiotics & antifungals (all of which Denise had already been on). She thought that Denise might have been ready to pull out of the nosedive on the day of transport.

My buddy Bob from Tennessee is leaving early tomorrow morning, after spending four weeks with me. During that time, he's only seen Denise three times, tonight being the latest. And during the rest of this time he's put in many hours at my school doing computer tech work. He's put in more hours at my house doing everything from cooking to home improvement to child care. In all things, he's been a calming force amid the turbulence. For all this inconvenience from his normal life, all he would accept in return were meals from some of the places he loved before he & his wife moved to Tennessee. I can't thank him enough, nor his wife for letting me borrow him for this long.

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