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Thursday 23 April 2009

Hi again mother reporting on this weeks events


Sal hadn't been too well since saturday, she has been eating enough for a regiment and got a bit blocked up. she was finding it hard to breathe and she had to increase the oxygen from about 1 litre to 3-4 litres, her spirometry was decreasing too. she could only manage about about half of what she was doing. By tuesday she was feeling really unwell and she saw the doc and her sent her straight away for an xray then a CT scan. These did not show much except there were some changes but nothing darastic. they decided to do a broncoscopy, so the next morning thats wednesday she went off to theatre to have the proceedure. I was told that she should be back by 11am so I waited in her room, 11am came and went and no sign of Sal, the doctor came into the room and told me that she was having a little problem breathing so they had to put her back onto the ventilator and she was in HDU just off the theatre and i couldn't see her just yet and she should be back at around 2pm. At around 1.30pm a nurse came into Sals room and told me that she would be going into ITU, she thought I knew that but I didn't. She went and the doc came in about 10mins later and told me that she would be going to ITU, he did say he had been up to check on her just to make sure that nothing had gone wrong with the proceedure, which he assured me that nothing was amiss. I wasn't allowed to see her until she was in ITU. I cleared her room out and packed it all into bags not knowing what was happening, I didn't even know where she was, during this time the nurse came back into the room to ask if i was ok. Room cleared now to find where my daughter had got to. i went to ITU and they told me she was in theatre and was expected down soon and to wait in the waiting room until she was in and settled. i didn't quite understand what they were telling me, i spotted one of the docs off the ward so I grabbed him to find out what was going on, He took me back to her now empty room and explained that the prelimary results of the biopsy showed no infection or any rejection, so what was the reason why her breathing had got so bad? he didn't know at this stage. He told me to come back at 4.30 for the final results, I still didn't know where she was or really what was going on. He was told me due to the blockage, as her stomach was distended, she looked pregnant, lol it had pushed her diaphram up which in turn pushed the fluid further up her lungs which was causing her difficulty in breathing. They inserted 2 chest drains and drained off quite a lot of fluid, which in turn gave more room when i eventually saw her she was on a ventilator, but she was awake and she was writng notes on paper telling me she was in pain. They gave her some morphine and she reacted badly from it, It was scary I can tell you. They sorted out another type of pain relief, when that started working, she was asking how long before they took the ventilator out. It was about 4am when they took it out.

even though she was in discomfort (with the ventilator down her throat), she just wanted everyone to know she is still in good spirits and fighting everything bad that comes her way. Sal was taken back to the ward this afternoon (thursday) and has been improving ever since. She says she feels good now even tho she has the drains in and its a bit painful, thank god for the do it yourself pain relief. she has control over her own relief and only has to click a button to have some.

I expect that Sal will be writing her blog again in the next few days.

Mum signing off.

4 comments:

Oli said...

Hey to both of you.

I just wanted to say "hi" and let you know that it will all be fine from this. I had a similar experience to Sal - went into theatre for bronc and woke up ventilated on ITU, which is really scary.

For me, it was a massive infection, which obviously Sal has the advantage of not battling.

But I did also suffer very badly from blockages, too and it was hugely painful and uncomfortable. The docs are a bit rubbish with the CF meds, so she'll need to be firm with them about it.

But it will go away and she'll be fine and dandy. We're all sending loads of love and hope she settles again soon.

Me said...

sorry to hear about the setback, thinking of you Sally xx

Jayne said...

As above, I'm also thinking of you. xx

Unknown said...

Heh Sal, You are very courageous and I don't know you well so I don't know if you feel brave right now or if you just feel like you have to be, but I'm praying for you that you will feel as courageous as I think you are when I see you laying there with your thumb up in that hospital bed. I look forward to hearing from you again soon...thanks to Mum.

love Kerry