Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Day 7 Post- Transplant

Today's Highs: Mitch walked 1200 meters today! Lungs felt stronger and Mitch is now down to 1 liter of O2 (they are weaning him off). He also kept it off a lot today and his O2 saturation stayed consistently above 92, for the most part. He is eating solids!

Emotionally, Mitch was more alert and in a better mood today. He was more himself today.

Lows: Still in a lot of pain from the chest tubes. The left lung is still having trouble affixing itself to the pleural wall , but this is normal and just takes time, the docs said, so they have him on suction still- the four chest tubes, draining fluids.

Upcoming:
Mitch will have his bronchoscopy tomorrow am which will determine if his body is accepting or rejecting the new lungs. 50% of the time, for transplants, the one week bronch shows rejection, so they said they almost expect it. If his body is rejecting the new lungs, they do 3 days of massive amounts of steroids to convince the body to change its mind. They said this works.
Despite this warning, I am hoping for good news... we wont have the results until either tomorrow night or Thursday am, so I will post a quick update when it comes in.

Behind the Scenes: Aunt Lynn and Grammy are helping me out a lot!!! Gayle went back to MD this am for a little break and to ring in the new year later this week. And, Simon and Matias miss their daddy and are so upset they haven't seen him yet but they have a bit of a runny nose so I am scared to bring them in, just in case.

1 comment:

joan said...

Rebba and Mitch - today I send you an extra dose of hope for the news you want. The fan base is putting a gentle hand on your back to help you with your walks. xo love joan.