Yup. That is all that is new today. At a time when many open heart surgery patients would be home Nancy still has a chest drain and holding excess fluid, mostly in the lower body. As her arms have been freed up and she has been able to move them and exercise her hands, these have taken on a normal look.
The surgeon requested of the ICU nurses that they record what part of her meals Nancy actually eats. Then the nutritionists can calculate the nutrients she is ingesting. The nurses just love to do this! Yeah, right! Having enough of the proper nutrients is essential to cell recovery and lessening the edema. With her refurbished heart doing well they feel it is time to focus on this other problem.
At 2 P.M. a crew of two from the physical therapy staff showed up to work on Nancy. I left.
Nancy seems to have had very little trouble from the open heart surgery. Rather, her entire body has suffered from the allergic reaction to heparin – the anticoagulant. Over the weekend she will stay in the ICU, then on Monday she will likely have the chest drain removed (or maybe not) and move to the fourth floor. There they can be more active about getting to work on the lower body therapy which she badly needs.
While we are now counting nutrients we are not yet counting down the days to the end of the hospital stay. It does seem that we will soon be doing that too.