I’ve spoken with some of you and emailed others, and I apologize to those of you I missed. If I was more on the ball I might have realized that this would be the easiest and quickest way to update you all. Here’s where things are with Kathy (and I’ll start at the beginning for those of you who haven’t heard anything): On Tues we flew home from Kansas and those of you who were there know how fine she was. On Wed morning she said: “I think I have a cold coming on.” By mid-morning she had a temp of 102 and was feeling a “heavy chest.” She slept through most of Wed. On Thurs she felt no better and thought that she should see a doctor so we went to an urgent care facility. They did a chest X-ray and decided that she had severe pneumonia in both lungs and should get to the hospital. By Thurs night she was in intensive care (ICU) with 2 IVs of antibiotics in each arm and breathing through a mask. Fri she got no better as they added more and different antibiotics. By Sat, a concern developed that breathing so much oxygen through a mask would start causing damage to her nose and throat so they decided to put her on a ventilator. This also allowed them to do a bronchoscopy (like an endoscopy but the camera goes into the lungs) and take some small samples from her lungs to try to identify the cause of the pneumonia. They also began give her fungicides in case a fungus is the cause. Sun and Mon brought no change to her condition. So far all tests are negative and the samples collected during the bronchoscopy were negative too. Late today they did surgery – they went into her lung to pull out larger samples and those are now being examined to determine exactly what they are. The surgery went very well; there were no complications and the surgeon was certain that he got good samples for the pathologists to examine. We might have an identification immediately or it might take a few days. The leading thought right now is that this might be a virus. The bad news there is that there are not many treatment options for viruses; basically they just run their course. Steroids can be helpful, but there are some conditions for which steroids are an extremely bad idea, so they really want to rule out those conditions before using them. So right now it’s about waiting for identification and/or for her to beat whatever it is. Me, I’m alternately optimistic and terrified. I’ve never seen her like this or felt this helpless. I am taking breaks (there are enough procedures for which I need to leave anyway) and coming home at night. (She made me promise not to use being with her as an excuse for skipping my exercise, and I am keeping that promise.) Some of you have asked about visiting. Please not yet. She is not in a very interactive state; this isn’t the typical “I’m in the hospital and bored, please come distract me” situation. She is being kept sedated (even more heavily now after the surgery) and cannot speak (because of the breathing tube down her throat). She is in the ICU and being watched very carefully. As soon as she starts to improve and gets moved to a regular room, I’ll invite you all to come and/or send flowers, balloons, etc. She’s going to need a long recovery; I anticipate that she won’t be out of the hospital quickly. Thank you all for your notes and calls; I will pass them and your love on to her. I’ll post updates as I get them.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Jul 2013 02:15:09 +0000
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