I arrived today to find Nancy in a chair.\u00a0 It is not an easy task just yet for that to happen.\u00a0 She is still connected to a couple of drip lines, an oxygen line, and the chest cavity drain.\u00a0 She also has a suction line such as the one dental assistants use to clear your mouth.\u00a0 This is a great advance over having to cough and spit into tissue.<\/p>\n
Some body chemistry is still marginal.\u00a0\u00a0 Fluids are an issue partly because she is drinking a lot and not eating much solid food.\u00a0 Getting rid of the fluids takes out some of the desirable chemicals, such as calcium.\u00a0 While these things are easily correctable they do require monitoring, injections, and pills.\u00a0 They are also (and have been for awhile) giving her low doses of insulin, as in being diabetic.\u00a0 We think this may just be because of all the things that have happened and that it will not remain a long term issue.<\/p>\n
Nancy is right handed and moves the right arm and hand more than the left.\u00a0 This shows in the degree of puffy-versus-normal in the appearance of her left hand. [The puffy or swollen aspect is referred to medically as edema<\/em>, caused when fluid is retained in the spaces between body cells.]<\/p>\n Her lower legs are likewise swollen.\u00a0 This is her 37th<\/sup> day of being in bed, many with almost no movement.\u00a0 With the open heart surgery behind her it is a sign of progress that edema is the concern of the day.<\/p>\n Today, there was also the issue of the bed.\u00a0 I guess she has used it so much it needed to be replaced.\u00a0 So, before moving her from the chair with the Robin\u2019s egg-blue \u201cfloat\u201d (a canvas like sling), the broken bed was moved out and a new one in.\u00a0 These things may not roast the Christmas turkey or fly you to your Hawaiian vacation but they are marvels of engineering and construction.\u00a0 They also cost about 50 grand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I arrived today to find Nancy in a chair.\u00a0 It is not an easy task just yet for that to happen.\u00a0 She is still connected to a couple of drip lines, an oxygen line, and the chest cavity drain.\u00a0 She also has a suction line such as the one dental assistants use to clear your … Continue reading “SATURDAY — on the mend; edema”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p72iNf-2z","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=159"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":162,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions\/162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}