Tuesday AM Update

What a seesaw! Today, the general practitioner was surprised finding some sounds in mother's intestinal system. He thought he was hearing machine noise with his stethoscope at first and just could not believe that her system might be changing for the better. It is improving! Signs are that her digestive system may be recovering. He is guarded and not saying that she is out of the woods. This issue is the single-most threat to her life, so the possibility of her colon living through this is a very positive step forward for her.

Dialysis was successful yesterday and today. After yesterday's treatment, her BUN number decreased from 125 to 100. It remained way too high over night but certainly was better. After today's 3-hour dialysis, it should be much lower tomorrow. She completed todays dialysis about 1130AM today. During the dialysis, her heart took a run at about 140 beats/minute. Medicine injected by IV rapidly controlled it so that she did not experience a blood pressure drop that would threaten her digestive system more.

I walked through her skin abrasions again with the skin specialist nurse and actually helped the nurses with bandaging and dressing. This was the second time I have seen her treating mother. Mother's skin is like one of a burn victim. The treatments are similar if not the same as a burn victim. Two spots remain big issues, but most of her skin is healing quite well. Her mouth continues to hurt and she is reluctant to open her mouth very wide. I understood her more today than any other day yet.

Her white blood cell count is high - 21. That is probably due to the skin, not colon. The doctor indicated to me that he is thinking that the colon is returning back to health and a possible recovery in such cases is rare, but mother seems to be heading to be a rare case. A little bit of hope!

The kidneys did not produce much urine overnight - 35ml. That is disturbing because it was one of the lowest nights for urine volume so far.

She saw many guests this morning including Cliff, Kimberly, two of her girls, Linda, Wesley Booker, George Booker and his wife, Chris.