Wednesday AM 09-24-08

Mother is resting after having her bandages changed. She received a little mor morphone this morning to take away the pain. She looked much more at ease with the bandaging process. There is no change in her condition. Her mouth was cleaned up a bit today of dried blood, so she looks better. Her face has better color and her skin looks like it has just about totally recovered from the oxygen mask. She has no feeeever but her white blood cell count is a little elevated from the last time I checked. It is 15400, up from 14000. Her red blood count is low, as well as her albumin. I am concerned about the albumin and the protein level in her bood stream. She continues to be undernourished. I did not ask but will put this on the question list. It looks like she is off of IV feeding. Her digestive system might not be absorbing proteins and albumin. She continues to be fed a liguid diet through the tube. The nurse is considering a plan to take her off of IV for the remaining drugs and using her food mixture for administration of meds. The doctor has not ordered this yet, but she is suggesting to the doctors that this would be better practice. Today, Kate is her nurse. Mother's vital signs this morning when I went to see her were: heartbeat 70, O2 in blood 96%, breathing rate 14 (still assisted by ventilator), blood pressure 120/33 (54). Her pressure dropped to 49 when put on morphine.