I\u2019ve mentioned the drainage coming from Nancy\u2019s chest.\u00a0 From just after her operation until today the rate of discharge has steadily decreased and is now just half of what it was.\u00a0 It still seems a lot to me but the surgeon thinks that it will soon be time to remove the tubes.<\/p>\n
The pleural space is the space between the inner lining and the outer lining of the lung.\u00a0 A drawing can be found here:<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.nlm.nih.gov\/medlineplus\/ency\/imagepages\/9968.htm<\/a><\/p>\n A tube, usually about as big around as a small finger is inserted in the pleural space. This tube is sutured into place and the skin around the tube is sutured. This tube can be hooked to suction to facilitate drainage.\u00a0 The function of this set up is to help get the serum or fluid out of the body without allowing fluid, air, or organisms to enter.<\/p>\n You can learn a bit more about this by visiting the following site.<\/p>\n http:\/\/web.mac.com\/kieran.mcmanus\/Chest_drains\/Chest_drainage_systems.html<\/a><\/p>\n There is a simple drawing showing three bottles and the basic set up.\u00a0 Scroll down to see the 3-chamber plastic unit such as is being used for Nancy.\u00a0 This is not shown in use here but continue scrolling down and there is a photo of a plastic unit (a Portex bag) showing the color of the initial fluid being drained from Nancy.\u00a0 Over time this color has become more pink and transparent.<\/p>\n The pleural fluid allows the pleurae or membranes to slide effortlessly against each other during the breathing process.\u00a0 The fluid is produced and reabsorbed continuously.\u00a0 The decrease in volume and the change in color indicate the improvement taking place within Nancy\u2019s body, especially the chest cavity.<\/p>\n Soon the sutures holding the tubes in place can be removed, the tubes pulled, and the holes closed \u2013 then her lymphatic system will have to take over the absorption of any excess fluid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019ve mentioned the drainage coming from Nancy\u2019s chest.\u00a0 From just after her operation until today the rate of discharge has steadily decreased and is now just half of what it was.\u00a0 It still seems a lot to me but the surgeon thinks that it will soon be time to remove the tubes. The pleural space … Continue reading “SUNDAY — drainage reduction”<\/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-186","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-30","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186","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=186"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":191,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186\/revisions\/191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}