Lucy's third procedure took about two hours. She will need a fourth procedure tomorrow. There was clot material just under the sheath they put in near her knee. That sheath has been removed. Lucy will be here through tomorrow.
Lucy's hemoglobin is starting to drop again. After her transfusion on Thursday, it was at 9.8. Yesterday it was at 8.0. Today it is 7.3. She will be getting a one unit transfusion tonight just to bring it over 7.5. The anticoagulants and clot dissolving drug plus all the IV fluids she has had can "dilute" her hemoglobin levels.
There is good news to report, too. Her calf circumference is already 1 cm (0.4") smaller after today's procedure, though we could expect some fluctuation. The color is not so dark red and her foot and ankle pulses are louder through the Dopler flow detector.
Molly stopped by, and Dr. Thurmes visited about a half-hour later. Dr. Thurmes feels Lucy's mild fever spikes, occasional chills and slight low blood pressure (hypotension) is due to the clots, not an infection. Her blood cultures are still "unremarkable" which is great.
Please indulge me for a moment while I go off the subject of Lucy for a moment. In blog related news, comments work and we encourage you to use them. Blogger has had some issues with spammers injecting crap in the comments, so we will moderate comments.
For those of you who have a Facebook account, I have set up a "Journey of the Teal Owl" group. I am looking at using RSS Graffiti to automatically publish the blog posts on the Facebook group page. Bear with me on that.
In addition, those of you with a Twitter account can follow @tealowljourney. I will try to send a tweet when there is a new or updated post. This is all a work in progress and will be quite fluid for awhile.
Thank you for your patience! We are so grateful for all your love and support!
Sounds like they are keeping a good eye across the board. Hope she gets some relief from the swelling soon. Been thinking about you both all day.
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