Today (Saturday) Laura, Theresa and I all had to work in the morning so for the first time in this ten day period Chris didn't have a family member there at 8 AM after the morning shift change - the nurses work on 12 hour shifts with shift changes from 7-8 in the
morning and evening. We have to be out of the room during the changes. When I did get there around 1 PM she told me she had a scare. At 9:30 she had what the nurse called "rapid A-fib". Her heart which normally beats 60-80 times per minute was firing rapidly, up around 170 and lasted about 15 mins. The nurse was on it right away and after trying a few things called the floor Dr. and eventually gave her a medicine called metoprolol and the rate went back to normal shortly thereafter. When I got there she was eating lunch and looked good but as she told me I could see it worried her and made her think she would have to stay in the ICU longer than she hoped - that remains to be seen.
After lunch the nurse asked the Dr to come and speak to us. I asked if the event was caused by vasospasms (her TCD vasospasm test today was again negative) and he said no. He said there are a number of possible reasons, including due to all off the in/out of fluids over the past days, and said when she got out of here she should check in with her regular doctor, who would likely put her on daily low dose aspirin. He seemed fairly unconcerned that it was a major issue. I think he is probably a brilliant guy, it is what everyone says and I can see the entire staff listening and following every word, so I'm feeling better about it.
Chris felt better about it too, so the nurse unhooked all of her lines and we took two laps up and down the hall together. When we got back to the room we talked about the people in the other rooms we had just passed, none of which at this point are in as good shape. I told her she'd be an inspiration to them, seeing where they too will hopefully soon be. She said that she got inspiration from people she saw make that walk before and were now gone to a step down room, or home.
We received another big bunch of cards in the mail today which we opened in her room and read all of the kind words. We both got a little choked up. She has quite a collection going and we are running out of places to put them; what a nice problem to have. Thank you everyone.
She is always hot and I am always cold, but because she's in the hospital she gets to decide the temperature (each room has it's own thermostat). Well let me tell you, it is freezing in there. She's got a fan blowing on her with the temp set to 60, and the nurse, what a sweetheart, is bringing ME blankets. Gonna have to start wearing long johns to visit.
It's almost 8 and shift change will be over soon so I can go back in. We're watching football. We don't follow it so we don't really care who wins but it's just hanging out together.
More tomorrow.
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