Saturday PM 09-20-08

This afternoon, mother remained about the same. The ICU staff continued to work on all fronts but concentrating on her skin and her comfort. Her bandages were changed and showed improvement in almost all areas. Her blood pressure had dropped a little but was in acceptable limits. She was sedated and appeared to be heavily sedated but the nurse said she is not. Her eyelids are scaly, so this evening I asked the nurse to clean them. She said that she had been doing that but would ask the doctor if a salve could be put on them to help her.

Wayne flew in today and mother instantly recognized his voice (who wouldn't?). She lies there not wanting to open her eyes. I noticed that they are red, not clear like a few days ago. I think the oxygen leakage from the mask of yesterday and the day before has damaged her skin and eyes but it will be a question for the doctor tomorrow. It is apparent that we should have gone with the doctor's recommendation of the ventilator earlier.

I discussed mother's lung condition with the pulmonary doctor. He said he wanted to keep her on the ventilator for two more days before weaning her. The rationale is to not expend breathing energy and allow that energy to be used elsewhere to repair her other organs, including the skin. A normal person expends 25% of their energy breathing. He calls the current role of the ventilator as full assistance.

The wound nurse, Linda, told me that normally a person heals in 3-5 days using the techniques she is using. Mother's skin was severely damaged and is now almost totally in a state of repair. To get to this stage, all of the dead scabs must fall off and show only red color. She showed me several places that had almost totally healed. The worse places were now almost totally red, with some yellow. The yellow places will disappear soon. She is treating each color differently. Now all areas are treated once per day instead of two. This is definite progress. It will take some time, but her skin should completely heal itself. The pain remains in treatment and will so for a few more days while the skin heals, but she is given morphine each time they treat it, to remove the edge of the process. Linda will not treat her tomorrow. The ICU nurse will. He got specific instructions from Linda today when he helped her.

Some caution on our optimism was advised by the pulmonary doctor. "She is not out of the woods but she can certainly see though the limbs now." Her left lung still has an infiltrate in one lobe. Her lungs are clear but this condition still exists in the x-ray. He will keep his eye on it. He said that could be pneumonia or the start of it but he cannot tell right now. It could simply be part of the mucous and fallout from the fall.

Wayne, Sharon, Randy, Russ, Kell and Shilla visited her today.