April 19, 2012

Exciting update on Mom for April 19th:

First off, today was such an exciting day for Mom and for us. She is now off of the ventilator machine, can breathe on her own, and has all the throat tubes removed. The tubes were right on her vocal chords, so her voice is very hoarse and hard to understand. As long as you listen closely, you can understand her fairly easily. This is great news for her! 
She did have dialysis for about 3 hours today which is like the mechanical kidney that "filters" her blood to make it very clean. She had plasma transfer again today for about 1 1/2 hours to remove some more of the excess proteins. Her blood pressure is looking good, and she is more alert, but tired since she is doing all the breathing work on her own. Her oxygen level was in the 96-100 zone again which is excellent. She has been very nauseous today though, and they have given her medicine to help with that. It makes her feel more comfortable when she can be moved around on her bed, so they move her around when she wants it.
She is still in ICU, but we hope to have her back into a normal room as soon as possible. Her rheumatologist and her kidney doctor came to see her today. Her kidney biopsy results did come back today. They confirmed what they thought she had, which is granulomatosis with polyangiitis (Wegener's disease). She does have some scarring on her kidneys, but nothing too bad. They will know more in time, but that is what we know currently. Besides the diagnosis, today has been a great day.
She is resting much better today, and is more comfortable since her ventilator tubes are out. Tomorrow will be a better day than today has been, and the next even better. Every day she improves even more, which makes us feel a whole lot better. Today has been an exciting and good day for her and us, and she knows she will be okay. I am very happy she has gotten better so much quicker, and it is great she was only on the ventilator for 3 days. I cannot wait to go visit her tomorrow and have her talk to me about Bandit and doing homework or things around the house. Her voice just makes me so happy, and confident that she is progressing well. We love her to death, now and forever.
I can't wait until tomorrow! Let's make it even better than today!
Joseph