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Thursday, March 1, 2012

March came in like a lion (in a good way)

Lucy had a very busy day with all the people in and out to check on her.

Dr. Dettis (infectious disease) was by and told her he was better than 90% certain her fevers and leg redness were solely from the clots, but he wants her to be on antibiotics for another day or two. That was reassuring for her to hear.

One of the hospital chaplins stopped by, and then Dr. Thurmes (hematologist) was by to see how she was doing. Unfortunately her hemoglobin was at 7.1 so she received one unit of blood just before going to IR. He feels the Coumadin and Lovenox are not working and had two other anticoagulants in mind. One is Pradaxa, which is a pill. The other is a once per day injection which she couldn't  remember. We are hoping Pradaxa is a workable solution. Dr. Thurmes had a couple of areas he needed to research first.

Her TPA procedure was delayed because of a couple higher priority cases. She was originally scheduled for 8:30 and finally went down at 12:45. The procedure was done by 1:15. She no longer is on TPA and they can stop doing the neurological tests in another four hours. She should be able to get more sleep tonight and have fewer interruptions.

She did have to have her arm IV access changed. Getting a different one in was very problematic. Her arms have really been poked. Certain drugs cannot be administered into a port, and her antibiotics are all incompatible with heparin.

Julie called tonight and like last night didn't get much time to talk to Lucy. The arm access IV adventure was just beginning.

Lucy got to sit on the edge of the bed for over a half hour. She even managed to stand up before getting back into bed. Tomorrow she will get out of bed and go for some short walks.

Getting the TPA catheter removed is a step towards going home. The next two steps are getting her off IV heparin and letting her leg heal a bit more. Getting the heparin level in line will probably be the most difficult given her past experience. We still don't have a firm release date.

Keep your fingers crossed, and thank you for all the thoughts, prayers, positive energy and good wishes!

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