Friday, March 11, 2011

Things Are Looking Up

It's spring in the desert. The mountain laurel is blooming.

A pretty decent day.  New attending started today.  Any surprise there?  I liked her on the spot.  She understood my concerns.

His ventilator settings are turned down to half the pressure it was and he's doing well with them.  He's still on the nitrous oxide.  No dialysis today, but definitely tomorrow, which is probably today when you'll be reading this.  They don't do dialysis on Sundays, except for emergencies.  The dr. said he thinks in two weeks they'll know if he'll need continued dialysis or not.

Peaceful day with him.  The nurse manager came and talked to me for awhile to see if I'm satisfied with the new nurses.  She totally understands my feelings.  Such a sweet person.

I'm ass-u-me-ing the infectious control already did the tests for parakeet viruses right in the beginning days when they asked me about pets in the home.  All tests came back negative except for the Hantavirus.  Also, from what I read from that page, it's bacterial and treated with antibiotics.  They gave him a TON of antibiotics from day one.

I'm not going to cause ways about the Fellow Dr. O unless he makes me feel verbally threatened again.  I figure just wait and he'll be rotating off.  New residents and Fellows seem to be coming on every day.  Just bide my time.  Save the waves for the big things.

Physical therapy came to do an evaluation while I was home doing paperwork.  I would have really like to have been there to ask questions.  I know surprising, me have questions.  I would like to know what I can do to help him regain arm and hand strength.  I'm doing passive range of motion on his arms and making him squeeze my hands.  I think he'll feel better once he can move his arms himself.

The sweater might be finished soon.  Just a couple more inches of lace, then the edging and the sleeves to go. Here's hoping for a peaceful weekend for all of us.

I've only heard bit and pieces about Japan.  My thoughts go out to them.

4 comments:

nursenikkiknits said...

I was so excited to see the title of your post. Yay for a good day! Glad to hear D's vent settings are down. Nitrous has to be weaned verrry slowly (as I'm sure you know) so it may take a while to get off.
I'm so jealous that spring is springing where you are. It looks lovely

Teresa Kasner said...

Dear Denise, so glad to hear good news from you about D. And the flowers there are sure to perk you up too. Good things... Teresa

Carol said...

I'm no expert on diagnosis, but the article you linked to said that pneumonia as well as a bunch of other things are typical. I did NOT see kidney failure, unless I missed it. So that twit can go...um, jump in a lake. Hanta virus, the ASIAN strain cn cause kidney failure. Did they do a test specific to the asiian strain or jus the North American one? Casue the NA one might come up negative for hanta even though it IS hanta, a different strain. And since you told them about the birds, yes, they SHOULD have tested for psittacosis already. Ak them if they did. Ask them if he has had antibiotics that would kill that just in case. Ask them about kidney failure in psitacossis. Grr

Tami Klockau said...

Denise, just catching up on the blog, as I was offline all weekend. Glad to hear you had a peaceful day! Much needed.