Mom wakes up when she has to have her trach tube suctioned, or her mouth swabbed.  She doesn’t seem at all happy about those experiences!

They are still have a problem keeping her blood pressure high enough.  She had some sedatives during the night so that she could rest, and that lowered her pressure.  Then they use some other medication to raise it. She would find this game too tedious for her taste if she knew that was going on.  Otherwise, she’s in good shape for the day. Probably, she’ll have less sedation during the day when there are visitors. She needs to get onto a regular diurnal schedule.  The nurse and I were just talking about how an ICU is like Las Vegas; there isn’t a distinction between night and day.

Mom was more alert from time to time than she has been since her initial stroke.  Most of that owes to no longer being heavily sedated.  She seemed aware of her predicament, and even had some reaction to some of the questions she was asked.  Of course, the bad news is that she definitely didn’t like what she was perceiving to be that predicament.

Her heart rate is pretty steady now, but she has had some trouble keeping her blood pressure from fluctuating, and occasionally breathes pretty fast.  All in all, none of these things seem to be life-threatening.

Tomorrow there will be a decision about putting a shunt tube in to be sure that her intracranial pressure stays in a normal range.  She is likely to need that as she starts the road to recovery.

And besides all of that, there isn’t much else for us to do except wait and hope for small improvements from day to day.

Mom had a quiet night, for the most part.  She had some agitation, and so she was mostly kept sedated.  This morning she opens her eyes and looks around. Of course, we can’t tell what she’s seeing yet.

More later.

Back from surgery without any complications. she looks much better without all of the tubes on her face.

She doesn’t have much sedation on board now, and has opened her eyes.

It’s way too early for any other news. I’ll keep everyone up to date.

A very quiet night; breathing very easily this morning, with only a low grade fever.  Still not sure why she has spiked fevers, but there is no obvious site of infection.

She will have surgery this afternoon.  Hopefully she will be more comfortable after she has the tracheotomy and they can lighten her sedation.  Then we’ll get a better idea of her neurological status. The only other outstanding problem is that she is not absorbing her cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) efficiently, and so she will probably need to have a tube placed to help drain that fluid.  Without good drainage, she could develop hydrocephalus, which would further complicate her neurological recovery.  They will make a decision on that later in the week.

For today, let’s hope for an easy surgery and then take it from there.

Mom is resting pretty comfortably, although her fever is kept under control, partially with a cooling vest, which makes her shiver.  So they are using a variety of medicines to make her more comfortable.  She still is breathing pretty fast, and so they are doing a fair amount of suctioning of her airway to get rid of thick secretions that are clogging things up.

She is scheduled for surgery tomorrow, probably in the afternoon, to place the tracheotomy and feeding tube.

Mom was having a good night until about midnight, and then started breathing fast.  They were worried about her having had a pulmonary embolus, which is pretty common after being in her condition for nine days.  Her blood oxygen level was good, and after working on her breathing for a while, her respiratory rate returned to normal.  Otherwise, she is resting pretty comfortably this morning.

A number of people have asked if they can be e-notified when there is an update about Tasha.  I probably spent too much time trying to figure this out, and this is a test to see if I succeeded.  If so, you will be able to place a request to get an email when there is a new post.  I’ll let you know…

The surgery to place a tracheostomy and a feeding tube is planned for Tuesday. The trach is so that she can have her sedation lightened. It is too uncomfortable to be awake with an endotracheal tube in, and it is not good to keep that in indefinitely anyway. The feeding tube will allow the nutrition mixture to go directly into her stomach, so there is less chance of it going accidently into her lungs and causing pneumonia.

Meanwhile, Cosmo is resting comfortably at Vange’s house. Thank goodness for Vange. Judy L is in the hospital at least for another day.

Mom had an easy night, occasionally spiking temperatures, but her other vitals are good. Her heart rate is steady now, and she is breathing on her own with ventilator assistance. The cardiologist just came in and thinks that she’ll probably only need medicine for her heart rate. The white blood count, an indicator of infection, is coming down.

So, everything is quiet here for now.