Rachel Update: Rachel continues to make great progress and has been moved out of the ICU and into a regular room this evening. Below is a pic from Monday night, followed by an updated pic from tonight; it’s incredible the difference four days makes! The only material hiccup thus far has been a blood clot resulting from the PIC line they put in yesterday; the PIC line has since been removed, and blood thinners should reasonably be able to address this. Her breathing appears to be markedly improved compared to her pre-surgery condition, and the amount of sputum she is coughing up has been greatly reduced. The daily fevers are also greatly reduced; prior to the surgery nightly fevers of 101 to 101.7 were becoming standard. Rachel’s body was essentially performing an autopneumonectomy over the past many months, recognizing and reacting to a lung that was operating at roughly 1% capacity. As such, her organs had already began to shift to that area, reducing the size of the lung and cavity. The remaining infection appears to be her biggest risk moving forward. When first diagnosed in June they put her on a two-year antibiotic plan to combat the infection, so this will clearly not be resolved overnight. There are still catheters at the top and bottom of the right thoracic cavity, which allow her doctors to perform a daily irrigation process with antibiotics to directly combat the infection that was lingering outside of the lungs. They will continue to do this through Monday. For the long term, they’ve restarted her oral antibiotics to combat the infection that still remains in the left lung. Outside of the core areas of removing the lung, she has a few areas that need to heal. They used titanium wiring and a stainless steal metal plate to structurally reinforce the rib cage, as they removed one rib and cracked another during the surgery. Further, they used cow intestines to repair the pericardium sac, which was also damaged during the surgery. Overall, we could not be more pleased. Her doctors said, Even the most experienced of ICU nurses would be amazed. Thank you for the continued thoughts, prayers, and support. All of it has been a powerful boost.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 02:37:20 +0000
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