Well we hit a little bump in the road yesterday with mom. We went for her follow up appointment with her heart surgeon, we found out the source for mom's shortness of breath and decreasing endurance - she has about 5lbs of fluid in her right chest cavity! I saw the xray myself! They said that is the equivalent to about an IV bag and a half of fluid she is carrying around in there. Dr. Roberts said 1 of 5 who have this surgery have this minor complication and the removal process is very simple - she will go to their outpatient facility on Monday morning and they will do an "image-guided" needle to the area and withdraw the fluid. They say within 24hours she will see a huge difference in her lung capacity and endurance. I think we were both relieved to hear the news actually, because I was really worried about mom on the way to the appointment yesterday. She was so quiet and tired and out of breath walking. She lost her balance a few times. We actually had been noticing this on Sunday at church and just kind of gradually since she has been at Heartland. We have been trying to focus on the positive and I guess we felt maybe the negative stuff we were seeing was just "to be expected" after surgery, but secretly we have been worried and I think she has been too. She has been working so hard in therapy to make herself feel better, and the care team were seeing her do so well - thus the reason they were planning a discharge. However, what they weren't seeing was that the rest of the day she was sleeping and not eating and just feeling exhausted. So it's just a blessing that we had that appointment yesterday and now know what's going on inside her body. The nurses there at Heartland will be keeping a close eye on her now until Monday. Dr. Roberts has taken her off the blood thinner coumadin for good now (that's why he couldn't do the procedure yesterday -she needs to be off of that and her blood at a normal level). So right now he wants her to just rest and cut back on therapy and anything else. We are not going to take mom home now until after the procedure is done and she feels better. It's important that she not take on too much until this fluid is gone.
Dad is doing great. . . he tried out a motorized wheelchair yesterday and really liked that feeling of getting himself around. They will continue to explore that with him and we may go ahead and change out his chairs. He had been so worried about how much mom had been sleeping and how tired she was looking - so he was relieved to know that there was something causing it - he is our watchdog with mom. He keeps a close eye on her and tells us if he thinks she needs us. So I think that has made him feel special knowing he is keeping an eye on her.
Keep mom in your prayers this weekend - and believe for a successful procedure on Monday! Love to all!
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