Thank you EVERYONE for all the good thoughts, prayers, pixie dust, etc. etc. etc. for Hilary and all of us!!! I will make SURE she sees this thread when she gets home!
UPDATE............Well, we thought yesterday that she might go home today. She was still on oxygen, (which they put her on when first admitted on Wednesday due to her blood oxygen level being low, even though she was breathing fine and only her stomach was bothering her at that point). She's been taking fluids and they let her start having food yesterday. Her chest xray came back negative, no pneumonia! YAY!!!!
However her blood pressure keeps going up at night and they don't know why. The first night they gave her Valium for it, and that was just way too much for her. She said "I was out of it and disoriented most of the night. I didn't know where I was. I thought I was married to Chandler from Friends. Tom was there, but I don't know who he was, 'cause I was married to Chandler!"
The next two nights they gave her Clonidine. They also found her potassium was very low, and so have been giving her that. She had an ultrasound yesterday that showed her kidneys are okay, but the walls of her gallbladder "were thickened". Not sure what that means. She's to have more tests for that on Monday. In the meantime, she DID start having problems breathing on Thursday evening. She said she felt she was "floating from all the liquids I'm drinking and the IV". She has such a tiny body that her bloated abdomen was pushing on her lumgs. She couldn't even sit in her wheelchair when they tried to get her up. They took the IV out Friday, but that hasn't helped. Her breathing hasn't gotten any better. She thinks she had a panic attack last night. She started having chest pains, and the feeling someone was sitting on her chest. She was upset at not being able to get a good deep breath since the day before. Well, they did an EKG, cardiac enzymes and another chest xray. That scared her even more, and she thought she was having a heart attack. All those tests were normal thankfully! I just talked to her this morning and I could tell even over the phone that she still isn't breathing right. She's always breathed very rapidly, I guess due to her disability and decreased lung space due to severe scoliosis. But, she's had pulmonary functions tests in the past that (even though she sometimes looks like she's not breathing easily), were always normal. I could hear on the phone how she was trying to get a breath before each sentence. She said her blood oxygen levels have been okay since she's been on the oxygen, even though she hasn't been breathing "right" (for her) for almost 2 days now. They are going to take her off the oxygen for a while later today and see how her oxygen levels are then. She still thinks she might go home later tonight or tomorrow! I told her not to go if she feels she's still struggling to breathe! I'm going to be talking to her again later today. I'll try to post an update then.
Debbie
UPDATE............Well, we thought yesterday that she might go home today. She was still on oxygen, (which they put her on when first admitted on Wednesday due to her blood oxygen level being low, even though she was breathing fine and only her stomach was bothering her at that point). She's been taking fluids and they let her start having food yesterday. Her chest xray came back negative, no pneumonia! YAY!!!!
However her blood pressure keeps going up at night and they don't know why. The first night they gave her Valium for it, and that was just way too much for her. She said "I was out of it and disoriented most of the night. I didn't know where I was. I thought I was married to Chandler from Friends. Tom was there, but I don't know who he was, 'cause I was married to Chandler!"
The next two nights they gave her Clonidine. They also found her potassium was very low, and so have been giving her that. She had an ultrasound yesterday that showed her kidneys are okay, but the walls of her gallbladder "were thickened". Not sure what that means. She's to have more tests for that on Monday. In the meantime, she DID start having problems breathing on Thursday evening. She said she felt she was "floating from all the liquids I'm drinking and the IV". She has such a tiny body that her bloated abdomen was pushing on her lumgs. She couldn't even sit in her wheelchair when they tried to get her up. They took the IV out Friday, but that hasn't helped. Her breathing hasn't gotten any better. She thinks she had a panic attack last night. She started having chest pains, and the feeling someone was sitting on her chest. She was upset at not being able to get a good deep breath since the day before. Well, they did an EKG, cardiac enzymes and another chest xray. That scared her even more, and she thought she was having a heart attack. All those tests were normal thankfully! I just talked to her this morning and I could tell even over the phone that she still isn't breathing right. She's always breathed very rapidly, I guess due to her disability and decreased lung space due to severe scoliosis. But, she's had pulmonary functions tests in the past that (even though she sometimes looks like she's not breathing easily), were always normal. I could hear on the phone how she was trying to get a breath before each sentence. She said her blood oxygen levels have been okay since she's been on the oxygen, even though she hasn't been breathing "right" (for her) for almost 2 days now. They are going to take her off the oxygen for a while later today and see how her oxygen levels are then. She still thinks she might go home later tonight or tomorrow! I told her not to go if she feels she's still struggling to breathe! I'm going to be talking to her again later today. I'll try to post an update then.Debbie
