Today started with such promise. Heather has been asleep for a week now, so I was hoping today would be the day when real progress was to be made.
I arrived at the hospital about 8am and spoke to Shaly, who was to be the nurse looking after Heather today. She told me Heather had been stable overnight and was on minimal sedation and had had her insulin intake halved. I assumed this was due to the impending tracheostomy due this morning. As ward rounds were due about 8:30, I went for breakfast.
When I got back, I found out that they were going to perform the tracheostomy at 10am. I hurriedly sent text messages to the family before wishing Heather good luck and sat in the waiting area to read the paper while the team did their work. Although the paper kept me occupied, my stomach was turning over and my mind wandered, thinking about what was happening on the other side of the wall. Initially, they told me the procedure would take about 30 minutes, but I gave them an hour to be on the safe side. However, as the 45 minute mark approached, I started to get more nervous with my stomach doing somersaults.
About 10:50am, Shaly poked her head around the door and told me that they had to abandon the procedure, as Heather had a reaction to the paralysing agent they had used. It caused her distress and made her blood pressure rise to an unacceptable level. It was simply safer for them to abandon the rest of the procedure for today and allow her to stabilise again.
Damn!
Shaly took me back into Heather’s room where I found she had been put onto 100% oxygen, was quite red and very hot. Shaly said she would give her a wash and also shampoo her hair, so I took this opportunity to go and get a coffee to calm down a bit (probably not the best thing to calm you down, but it helped)
During my coffee break, Mum and Martin arrived and I filled them in with what had happened. We went back to Heather at 12:20pm following her wash and were pleased to find that her temperature had dropped to a cool 36.3 degrees. Much better than over the last few days.
At 12:40, she was given some antibiotics and I spoke to one of the doctors who assisted with the trachy that morning. He told me that they would try to tracheostomy on Wednesday morning using a different paralysing agent. However, the important thing was that Heather was kept safe this morning.
At 1:10pm, Heather’s blood pressure dropped quite low, so they had to give her some fluids to bring it back up again, which took about 35 minutes to sort out. Heather’s Mum arrived during this time.
After all this, I needed to take a break and Mum, Martin and I went outside for lunch, while Heather’s Mum sat with our girl.
At 2:25pm, she was given more antibiotics and blood samples were taken.
At 3:35pm, Preethy the physio came to check on her breathing, manipulate her arms and legs to maintain movement and to roll her onto her side. During the rolling process, the power went out in ITU for a few seconds. Fortunately, it was only for a few seconds and wasn’t caused by the staff doing the rolling.
Heather’s Mum and I stayed with her until 4pm to make sure her stats were OK before we left (which they were).
So, a day that started out with promise turned out to be another day of making sure Heather was comfortable and stable. A little disappointing and frustrating at the same time, but at least she is safe and being looked after. I hope the next paralysing agent they use will be the one that works for her.
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