Progress

Sorry for the delay........................ we had a little technical problem that had to be worked out on this page. All is well now.

Donna has been moved to the Step-Down unit of CV (Cardio Vascular) and continues to make good progress. She was moved on Saturday morning after a pretty tough night of pain (remember the latest surgery was last Thursday afternoon and it required yet another vertical incision on the front of her body. She now has an almost continuous line from her throat to her belly button).
This morning the doctor decided to keep the heart drainage tube in place (darn it!) as they are monitoring the amount of fluid and it seems to be a bit excessive. They think that when she sits up, it drains more than when she is lying down and they just want to keep a close eye on it. Remember that the drainage tube was placed so the lining around the heart would not fill with fluid, again. While this tube is in, they do not want her up and moving around much. She can go from the bed to the chair and back, but that's it. She still has a catheter too. Needless to say she has grown very weary of being in bed and the chair and the room. Who could blame her? The surgery for the fluid around her heart was on February 18 and today is March 2 ! That's 13 days she has been confined to bed, plus the 3 days prior to all this she was barely moving around much because of the pain. Whew! That would make anyone cranky ! ! !

Donna's spirits were sagging a bit so we decided to cheer her up with a little silly skit. The plan was to perform on Saturday but mother nature had other plans - we had almost 7 inches of snow dumped on Memphis and it was too awful to drive to the hospital, so we had to delay our performance. By Sunday, the sun was shining the roads were clear and we were able to roll. Kacie (neice), Kylie (neice), Natalie (neice) and myself (the old woman) all sang and danced, in costumes, to - I Will Survive, Don't Worry/Be Happy and Ain't No Mountain High Enough in front of the whole family. (Notice there are NO pictures and hopefully none will be posted. This was a once in a lifetime experience, never to be repeated or seen outside that hospital room !) Whoops - we did get in a little trouble for having the music too loud but we didn't really care as we were all enjoying ourselves way too much ! It was the "highlight" of Donna's day on Sunday.

Louie has been spending the night at the hospital with Donna since she moved to Step-Down. (They wouldn't let him do that when she was in CVICU) He plans to return to Visalia tomorrow to catch up a little at work, then back to Memphs. We'll keep a close watch on her until he returns. The doctor has said that Donna will be through with her antibiotic treatment this Friday, March 6 - YEAH ! They plan to do more diagnostics to determine why she continues to have so much pain radiating from her back. Is it the infection, fluid or possible a herniated disc? As soon as she can move around, she will have another MRI (non-invasive) and one more test that will show hot/cold spots. She may get to go home (to her parents) on Friday evening or Saturday of this week. Depending on how well she does, the scheduling of these latest requested tests and so on. There are still a few unknowns but things are looking up again ! ! !