Salsa

Madison and I spent most of the afternoon making salsa from scratch. This was a first for her. She really made it all by herself. I just supervised. It's fun to have the completed product. It's a not quite as spicy as we would like it to be. We know we will change the "heat factor" the next time we make it. We enjoyed making it together though!

(Dbl click on the picture and you can see it much better)

Rodeo Pictures

Thought I would post a few of my favorite rodeo pictures. Madison and I went to the 1pm rodeo on Friday afternoon and she some how talked me in to staying and going to the 8pm rodeo too! I thought we would probably be home by 4pm, it turned out to be 11pm instead! I told her she could just give me the mother-of-the-year award now (while walking to the parking lot). She handed me my pretend trophy. It will always be so special to me. : )

Grilled Pizza

This afternoon we happened to watch "Barefoot Contessa" on the Food Network. I don't think I've ever seen this show before but she was making Grilled Pizza. Madison said, "Let's go make that right now!" And since I'm on my staycation, I said, "OK! Let's do it!" Hahaha. We've had so much fun this week. Madison made the grilled pizza basically on her own, with me to just supervise. This was her first time to use yeast and a cooking thermometer etc... The pizza turned out really, really good. We will definitely make it again.
I should note that we use a charcoal grill and that's what makes it taste so good. I don't think it would taste the same over a gas grill. Yummy! Thanks Barefoot Contessa! (I'm sure she has a real name but I have no clue what it is.)

Almost 3 weeks out...

Several of you have asked how Isy is doing so I thought I would just post a general update again. She continues to get stronger each day, no longer using the walker or cane to get around inside the house and much more steadier on her feet. She hasn't been out and about yet. Just to the porch and back inside. Still working on her energy and endurance. She has really appreciated the meals from their friends at church. She certainly isn't strong enough to be making meals yet. I saw her this morning (Wed) and I can see big improvements just since I last saw her on Sunday. One of the challenges right now is that she hasn't gotten her voice back. She's at a total whisper. I'm presuming this is from the irritation caused from the tube in her bronchial area for 10 days and the resulting bronchitis that this caused. She's still using nebulizer breathing treatments about every 2hours and this really helps with the coughing and tightness in her airway... just hasn't improved her ability to speak out loud yet. If anything, it's gotten worse because last week she could squawk out some sounds but as of the last few days, it's only a whisper sound. It will be 3 weeks tomorrow that she started coughing up blood, and 1 week ago tomorrow, when she was just coming home from the hospital. When we look back even 1 full week ago, it's amazing to see the great improvements since then. She has a couple of doctor's appointments coming up. I'm sure they will be happy with her progress. Thank you again for your thoughts, prayers, meals, cards and concern on her behalf!

Happy Birthday Quinn!

Quinn's birthday was in May. He really wanted to have a sleepover birthday party this year. I can't believe how difficult it was to find a free evening and free morning for our family and some of his friends! It ended up being quite "belated" while waiting for baseball season to end but Q didn't mind. It was worth the wait. It's getting really hard at this age to set limits on the number of guests to the party. My kids are blessed with lots of friends! He had 6 friends who came over at 4:30 yesterday afternoon. We took them to play Paint Ball in Mishawaka. That was quite the fun but oh. so. hot! The boys wore long sleeves, sweatshirts and Nate even wore his winter coat. Apparently the paint balls sting when you get shot so they weren't taking any chances. They played for a good solid 2+ hours. I made all 7 boys take showers last night. They STUNK! haha
I had to run (fly via the car) Madison to the fair by 8:45 for the 3 on 3 BB game in the midst of the party. By the time we got home, ate pizza for supper, called the boys in from outside at 10:45 and had them all shower, it was midnight by the time we got to the presents and cake/icecream! It was a good thing it was a sleepover. We told them lights out by 2am, I have a feeling some stayed up longer than that. Benjamin won the award for having to get up the earliest, he had to get picked up at 7:15am to head to the fair. Logan won the award for sleeping in the latest, when Jake finally woke him up at 1pm! The last partier left at 3:30.
I had to laugh at Tony. He came off that paintball course FILTHY! I told him I think he enjoyed playing paint ball as much, if not more, than all the boys together. He agreed! He was the only one "so serious" by army-crawling through the woods to sneak up on the other team and was quite proud of himself that he took 4 surprised kids out in one ambush. Hilarious! Check out his picture in the bottom left hand corner. That's as close as I could get to him, while he stealthfully snuck around! LOL

It's been a great staycation so far! : )

3 on 3 Basketball at the Fair

Madison, Shelby and Mac played 1 basketball in the 3 on 3 tourney at the fair on Tuesday at 9pm. They lost but had fun trying. It was pretty rough, aka football on a cement court, at times. Madison and Shelby both had skinned knees. They were in the 13-15yr old category so at age 13 had a hard time competing with the older girls. All in fun... at the fair. The free backpack from the fair was a surprise bonus. : )

4H Fair Fun

Monday was wrist-band day at the fair. You pay $20 and ride as many rides as you want. This is definitely the only way to do rides at the fair. The kids each had friends to ride with and rode rides for about 8 hours this day. Quinn left with an upset stomach... motion sick I think. Overall they had a really good time. They are old enough that we can send them off as pairs and tell them to check back in periodically at a meeting place. They are at a good age for the fair! YES!


Madison's last ride with the Ring of Fire. It goes upside down in a circle and holds you at the top for a few moments. I used to be able to ride stuff like this... not any more! Only rollercoasters for me... nothing that spins you in a circle. Ugh! Makes me quesy just to think of it.



Quinn and I sold Lemon Shake-ups for the Aerospace Club for a few hours. It's easy and he enjoys it a lot.



Madison rammed Jake pretty good during the Bumper Car ride.

Steps Forward

Today was Isy's first full day at home. I think it went pretty well for her. She's amazed at how weak she still feels. Madison and I spent the afternoon with her. She told me that she thinks she has taken a step backwards since she got home. I reassured her that I don't think that at all. She isn't one to sit around and that's basically what she has energy to do and then she looks at everything that needs to be done and things she wants to do... and feels like she's taken a step backward. She was able to move around a little better today too, still needing the occasional boost out of her chair and a walker for reassurance but we got a little bit of laundry accomplished together, that's more than she would have gotten done yesterday in the hospital. It won't be long and she'll be back in the swing of it all together. Don and Madison picked up her handicapped parking tag today at the license branch, courtesy of my nurse practitioner license. : ) I told her that was her reward for enduring being hospitalized for 2 weeks. : )
She still coughs quite a bit, and sounds so tight in her chest, but some inhaled medication is helping that too.

A huge blessing for Isy was that when she walked into her house, after being home only 6 hours in the last 1 month, her house was sparkling from top to bottom. Archie coordinated having someone clean it for her before she got home and she will clean every 2 weeks for her for a few months. Archie is so far away which we all hate. He has such a giving heart, he really does, and it makes us feel closer to him. This is something that he could do to help Isy. I think it's a wonderful idea... such a wonderful gift!

Thanks for checking in on us folks. Each one of you are so appreciated for your love and support.

4H Fair Projects

This year we felt fortunate to be able to get any 4H projects done. We usually work on them in June/July but it was a struggle to get them together this summer. Madison entered her spinning top that she made in school. This was her first-ever woodworking project. She got first place in her 7th grade class in school. Her top spun the longest. At the fair she got a red ribbon and the judge suggested she try something harder, using more skills. I think she did a very good job with her first ever wood-working project! It's a keeper for sure in our house.

She also entered this cute cell phone picture frame that hangs on the wall. It's a cute pillowy project. She got a red ribbon because it was entered in the wrong category. The judge said they wanted to see holiday-type of designs in the wall-hanging category. Too bad the judge wouldn't have stood up and walked it over to the right category for it to be judged in. I told Tony, "I suppose I'm going to have to get on the 4H Fair Board too!" (To make some common-sense changes in their judging system). LOL

Quinn did his research for this Tigherhawk airplane several months ago. Thank you Lord, that he saved it in the computer and could actually find it again. He found all the pictures to print out as well. Aunt Bonnie helped him with the word-smithing and all the family put input into where things should go on his poster. At one point there were definitely too many cooks in the kitchen!! SIGH Anyway... Quinn decided on this lay-out which was a hit with the judge and he earned a Reserve Champion ribbon. There is not a state fair exhibit in this category so the highest ribbon you can earn is the Champion and then the Reserve Champion and then it goes blue-red-white. Thank goodness he knows his airplanes because I'm almost clueless in the Aerospace category of life! LOL

Madison has had her poster idea in her head for a long time. She wanted to take paint and make her hand prints all over the black poster board and her theme was going to be the importance of hand-washing. You can't really see the hand prints behind her written info in the picture but the judge thought it was clever. The judge also commented that she was glad that Madison explained how to use the hand sanitizers too and when to use soap/water or sanitizer. Her Health subject poster was selected for the State Fair! That's quite an honor and a first time for her!

Madison also submitted a jar of frozen strawberry jam that we made early in June. This got a blue ribbon. We already new it was awesome because we all love our family recipe!

I'm off work this next week. I'm so glad! We are just going to have a staycation in the area. Tony is going to take some days off next week too. We will probably spend quite a bit of time at the fair. There is always so much to do there.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Going HOME

Shortly after 8am the phone rang and then I heard a very loud noise, like an 11 year old boy bounding up the stairs as fast as his legs could carry him, with a barking dog close at his heels. "Guess what-guess what-guess what- GUESS WHAT! Beppe is coming home today!"

Praise be to God!

One foot out the door

More progress today for Isy. Getting up/down and around much better. Getting stronger every day. PT and OT (occupational therapy) came to work with her today. Not sleeping well at night but that will surely turn around when she gets home and falls into a routine.

A special thanks to Sandy and Eileen (Isy's nieces) who turned those bushels of apples into applesauce! Thank you so much!! It's been almost 2 weeks since this all started. So happy we are looking at the sunshine on the other side of the tunnel!

More Progress

Isy had another good day today and has made even more progress. She seemed much more of her old-self today. Her voice is better and the conversation is easier to follow. : )
She has walked in the hall twice today and was up in her chair most of the day. She waited to do her 2nd walk until we got there tonight because she wanted to show us what she can do. : ) We all watched and cheered her on. She still needs help to get up/down and used a walker in the hall but eventually she will be able to ditch that as she gets her strength back. She's still in the ICU-Step Down Unit, they call it the Intermediate Care Center (ICC) so she still has the fancy IV lines, EKG monitoring etc... I asked her if she felt like having any visitors yet, surely our faces are getting quite old and there's not a lot of new things to talk about. She said yes, she felt strong enough to have a few visitors. : ) So, for you locals, if you would like to go and see her, you may! There is no ICC Bouncer so you are in the clear! : )

She's at Elkhart General, Room 4108, which is a private room. You can either go in the Main Entrance or in the Deil/Arcade Ave entrance (both the same side of the hospital, and this Deli door is a little closer to the elevator). Follow the signs for elevator D and take it to the 4th floor. When you get there, her room is about 1/3 of the way down on the left. Room 4108.

Thank you!

Another good day

Isy had another good day! No coughing/bleeding. When do you say she is home free? We don't know. That is a little anxiety producing. We have to choose to trust that of the 5 vessels in the lung that were blocked, the correct one was identified and the problem has been taken care of finally. After 10 days in the ICU, Isy was transfered to a medical floor in the hospital today. That is a great big step! She is going to start some physical therapy tomorrow to help her get her strength back. She still needs 2 people to help her pivot from the bed to the chair but she's 100% better than 1 week ago at this time. Madison basically giggled non-stop for the 3 hours we were at the hospital this evening. We all just feel so much relief and Beppe isn't quite "herself" yet, so she is saying/doing some funny stuff and we are finding everything funny. : ) Thank goodness she can laugh at herself too.

Thank you my family and friends, for your continued prayers for a full-recovery.

A great day!

Hello Dear Ones,
Sorry for the late update tonight.

Isy gave me a little scare this morning. I called the hospital to ask how her night was. They transfered the phone right to her which was a pleasant surprise. She said her night was "horrible!" I immediately braced myself. She must have had more coughing/bleeding. "What happened?" Honestly I was afraid to ask. "I slept awful." OH.... what a sigh of relief I felt inside! "I'm sorry you slept awful," I said, and tried to disguise the smile from ear to ear I felt in my heart!

Isy had a very good day today. She sat up in the chair at the bedside and was even eating some chicken by this evening's meal. She still is quite weak and couldn't wait to get back to bed after the first time she's been out of bed in 10 days! She tires out easily which is expected. We had to limit our visits to 10-15minutes at a time. She enjoyed seeing her brother John and Evelyn (from Goshen) and sister Hennie and Mark (from KS) for short visits today as well and we enjoyed visiting with them in the waiting room. I hope that tomorrow they will move Isy out of the ICU and to the regular Med-Surg unit. I would expect her to be in the hospital several more days yet, to work on getting her strength back, at least enough that she could get into the front door at home. : ) She (we, ok...all of us) have some anxiety about future bleeding but she made it 55 hours so far, we are especially thankful for that, beating out the old 40hour record. She's not ready to hear "all the details" yet of the past 9 days. She wants to only talk about positive things... where she is going, not where she has just come from. I don't blame her for that. Thank goodness she missed most of these past 9 days. She does have some very vivid and scary memories which we hope will fade but it makes me sad to hear her talk about them. We have had to get some teasing in though now that she is feeling better. We were talking about the medication they used for 9 days... Diprivan, which is the medicine that Michael Jackson used to try and sleep (why any doctor would try to use that for restorative sleep I don't know... that's another subject for another day) ANYWAY... we teased her that that medicine is the reason she woke up with a white glove on one hand. ; ) She laughed with us and that felt good.

I'm going to close this a little short tonight. We are going to work tomorrow. AJ and Bonnie are leaving for MN in the morning. Archie and Jade have regularly been checking in with us by phone every day from Kansas. It's been hard for Archie to be so far away. We told them not to come. We didn't want little Jade to see Beppe not feeling well and worry about her, especially since she just lost her mommy. Archie would have hopped in the truck as soon as we would have said "come" though. For. Sure. Our kids aren't too happy with us though. "You actually said 'don't come?' I can't believe it... why did you say that?!"

Please continue to pray that the bleeding vessels have forever been healed and for the anxiety of a recurrence of the problem to lessen. Again, thank you so much for your support. I received some lovely emails of encouragement today. While they made me a little teary eyed, they certainly were appreciated. Thank you.

Good-Night!

Addendum

This is an addendum that you will want to read!

Quinn and I went home to warm up our supper (that our wonderful neighbor Jennifer had in our refrigerator) and Tony sent a text that said the doctor had given the order for the tube to come out! He asked me to bring the dinner to the hospital because no one wanted to leave. So... who says lasagna doesn't really work for a picnic dinner? We packed up our meal and back we went. It was the best medicine for our sore eyes! Isy was fully awake and whispering in full sentences. The sedation medicine had worn off. Although very, very weak, we definitely saw her personality shining through. One of the first things she did when I walked into the room is introduced Quinn and me to the nurse. The nurse tried not to laugh and said, "Yes, I've met your family. They've actually been here a few day while you were sleeping." : ) Then she proceeded to tell her what a good baseball player Quinn is. Hilarious. The nurse was so sweet with her. Isy was describing how awful the restraints on her wrists were. "I was an OR tech for years so I know not to pull out my tube but I couldn't get anyone to listen to me." LOL! The nurse had the perfect answer, "I'm so sorry that you remember you were restrained. I'm sure that was very uncomfortable." (Very well done Nurse Kim.)

Isy feels she is healed. There were a few tears. She's not sure why God allowed this family to go thru such struggles yet again and yet she was healed again, but her daughter/son and the babies weren't. She gives praise to God and wants all the credit to go to Him for healing her.

She is very, very weak and her words are 100% whispered. She is not able to have any visitors yet (basically outside of us) but when she gets home from the hospital I'm sure she will be happy to have people visit. Right now, they are concerned about her strength and endurance, and of course concerned that she will bleed again, so the little hostess lady (aka ICU Bouncer) won't let you in if you stop by. : ( You can send her a card though. She will love those!

Please continue to pray that she not re-bleed. She feels she is healed but her body will need to prove it to the health care pros in order to give her the one-way ticket to home.

Once again, our sincere THANK YOU for standing in the gap for Isy!

Charades and Pictionary

What is today? Saturday? My oh my, this week has been f-o-r-e-v-e-r! Don, Tony, AJ and Quinn took a much needed break and went golfing this morning. That was such a good thing for them to do, especially for Don. He's barely seen any other scenery except the inside of that hospital. I let Madison sleep in which was a treat for her as well. I went and "Beppe-sat" (she will get a kick out of that term some day) by myself. It was actually pretty quiet and peaceful, just her and I and her friend Vinnie, the ventilator, pushing air in and out.

Isy had a quiet morning and a pretty quiet afternoon today. In the morning they started to lighten up the sedating medication again (aka "the michael jackson medicine") and she gradually started to perk up again. The respiratory therapist came by about every 2 hours and put her through some testing to see if she might be able to tolerate breathing on her own. (We know she can breathe on her own... it's just whether or not she was ready to breathe on her own with all of that medicine working its way through her system). By 3:30 she had finally passed the test which meant that the ventilator is no longer doing the mechanical work for her. She was awake but sleepy, but would easily open her eyes and shake her head yes/no while answering questions or us. The tube is really bothersome now that she's awake. They talked about extubating her (taking it out) but she's never really gone very long with being awake without starting to bleed so she needs to be awake and moving a little bit before they feel confident enough to try and extubate. She's not too happy about this. She's played a good amount of charades with us, obviously unable to talk while trying to breathe through a "straw".... (just kidding, it's bigger than a straw, may be a small garden hose... but still!) Her wrists are also still restrained and only come up off the bed about 6 inches. She kept pointing her finger and twisting her wrist and for the life of us, we guessed everything we thought we could but couldn't figure out what she needed. I finally got a pen and paper and she wrote out 4 words for Tony, Madison and I. It was a little bit of Pictionary because she was writing without being able to look at the paper. She wrote "oxygen mask" and we figured out that she was trying to tell us that she wanted the tube out and wanted an oxygen mask on instead. We explained that she had to keep the tube in, in case she bleeds, so she will have a patent airway. She shook her head yes that she understood that. She then wrote the word "when"... when can the tube come out? I hated to tell her the truth... may be not until tomorrow (that "tomorrow" word felt so ugly when it was only 4pm). She seemed to accept that too although I could tell she was disappointed. The last word she wrote, Madison guessed first, "pray" which automatically made me cry because that is all we have been doing for 9 days now! Tony, Madison and I laid hands on her and prayed with her right then as well. I hope that brought a little comfort to her. We encouraged her to try to rest/sleep because that tube will drive her crazy. So first we are calling her name and telling her to wake up and now we are telling her to go back to sleep. Hahaha. She's probably one confused lady as to what we want her to do! It was so wonderful to have some interaction with her. She laughed when I told her that Q was beating everyone in Jocker (a card game) in the waiting room. She laughed when we started trying to guess her word that started with "p"... "Pakka? Poop? Popcorn?" Of course you can't hear her laughter but her body shakes like she's laughing. She shook her head that she was impressed that Madison was already on page 300-something of her book (she knows Madison isn't much of a reader). She smiled big as we told her we loved her. AJ asked if she was getting any medicine that suddenly makes her hear better. She's usually quite hard of hearing but now she's picking up on everything, even Don's voice out in the hallway. We absolutely can't wait to have Beppe back to her old self! Madison's working on that list for her... of things she's "going to tease Beppe about forever and ever." haha. Boy, it sure feels good to laugh again.

Once again I thank you for your heartfelt prayers. We are really in a critical time. Unfortunately Isy is going to be somewhat uncomfortable with this tube down her throat and awake, but its so important that she not have any bleeding before it can be taken out.

Bronchial Angiogram #3

We walked in the house tonight at 10:20. It was a long day. Isy had a good start to the day. She rested while on the ventilator and they started to wean her off the medication, starting the process of waking up. We were so looking forward to this tube coming out today and getting to see glimpses of our usual Beppe by the evening. AJ, Bonnie and I were talking to her shortly before 5pm, calling her name and she was beginning to open her eyes. She recognized that AJ and Bonnie were there. She turned her head towards them and smiled big, but very soon after she started coughing up more of the bright red blood, about 180cc this time, through her tube. This was very significant. She did not have any bleeding for 40 hours (to be exact) until this point. They immediately increased her sedation again and she drifted back to her deep sedation level. So very disappointing. We thought we were so close. It just seems that any time she does any movement on her own, she starts to bleed again. By 7pm she was back down in Interventional Radiology for the 3rd bronchial angiogram of the week. By 9pm she was back in ICU and the doctor had embolized 3 more vessels. I know they are hoping to avoid having to do surgery on her. It's been 8 full days now. They tried to place a feeding tube today down her nose but were unsuccessful. It just refused to go. At about 1 week of not feeding the gut (intestines), it's important to think about that GI system and get some nutrition through the gut too, not just thru the IV. This helps the gut to keep working as it should. I'm not sure what they are going to do about that.
I'm so tired of all the sitting around. They need to have treadmills in the waiting rooms so people have something to do and can stay close at the same time! It's such a helpless feeling to see the doctors and nurses scurrying around everywhere and realize it's not my turn to help hang the IVs and provide direct patient care. I tried to think of something I could for Isy, other than just stare at the poor woman all the time. She always has this "thing" for her feet. They are always cold and she always tells us, "some day when I'm in a nursing home, make sure my feet are covered up and warm!" I brought in some Bath and Body Works soap and lotion and tried to give her some good foot care with warm/hot water, complete with a pair of clean warm fuzzy socks from home; off with the hospital footies! She was pretty sedated so I think she missed her pedicure, but at least it gave me something to do to try and make her feel better. We always make sure to check her feet before we leave, to make sure they are warm! The nurses are happy to get us warm blankets for them. They are still warm and toasty tonight. : )
So tomorrow, I think our goal will be the same again. To try and wean off the sedation, wake up a little bit, and move ever so slightly without bleeding from the lung. (That's my plan, the doctors may have a different one).
Oh, some of you have asked what Madison decided to do. She decided to stay home from the softball tournament, close to her Beppe and family. She had just left the room 30 seconds before the bleeding showed up at 5pm. I was so thankful she missed it. It took her a few hours to work her way back into the room and out of the waiting room. "Sorry Mom, but I'm not going to follow in your footsteps."
Thank you all for your thoughts and your coveted prayers,
Leah

A much better day

Thank you so much for your thoughts and prayers today. Some of you have even written your prayers out and emailed them to us. Those have been especially meaningful. We sincerely appreciate each and every prayer on our behalf. The family certainly knows that we can't get thru trials like this without lots of prayer and people standing beside us.



Overall Isy had a very quiet day today (compared to yesterday for sure). As you will recall, it's most important that she avoid bleeding so that she can avoid risky surgery upon uncharted territory. She had some significant bleeding (150cc, or 5-6oz) after midnight. It doesn't sound like much until you imagine it coming out of your lung! Thankfully she was on the vent and they could suction it out while maintaining a patent airway. We obviously were quite concerned about the midnight bleeding. We planned to meet with the surgeon at 1pm to see what he thought about it. AJ and Bonnie arrived around 10am. It's great to have them here! Unfortunately another family needed the surgeon and as of 8:30pm, he was still in surgery with that person. Isy rested quietly the rest of the entire day (on the vent) without any bleeding. Even though she was heavily sedated she was able to shake her head yes/no a few times to some of our questions. She even smiled when Tony talked to her (not when I did!). He's even more fully convinced that he is her favorite now. He is sure that she mouthed "love you" back to him. I could tell it was a tough day for Tony today. That was such a gift to him, it really was.



So that's really it. The day involved lots of sitting around and watching a "sleeping" person breathe or listening to other sad stories in the waiting room. Neither are great options. Someone asked if we were working at our jobs thru this week. The doc that I work with each day is out of state and so I was really needed at work. I worked full days on M and T and then just the mornings of W and Th. I will admit that there were a few moments when it was tough to hold it together but my colleagues are great and they know what to do with a few tears every now and then. They are also prayer warriors as well. Tony took this afternoon off in hopes of meeting with the surgeon. It's good for him to keep his mind busy at work. He has had quite a few losses in his life and when hospitals are uncommon ground to you already, it adds to the anxiety to sit by and not be able to fix the problem.



Our kids went to the Merrillville water park today with some wonderful moms who gave them a fun diversion for the whole entire day. We greatly appreciated this! Some of you are wondering about the Toledo softball tourney this weekend. Toledo is 2-1/2 hours away and feels too far for Tony and I so we aren't going. Tony was supposed to coach for the weekend but Tim has volunteered to help so we appreciate that as well. I'm not sure if Madison is going or not. We've given her a few options and she will pick the option she feels most comfortable with.



If all goes well tonight, Isy will gradually have the sedation lightened up tomorrow, be allowed to wake up and her cough reflex will return. Our goal will obviously be that she can be awake and not cough up blood.



Thank you again for your prayers. It seems so "easy" for me to say that, to type those 2 words. I don't take your prayers and your time lightly and I don't thank you "lightly." If I could sing them to you I would, I would write them in flowery letters or sky-write them so you understand my sincerity. I believe that prayers to God on behalf of others prompt God to move in ways that He might not otherwise move. He might intervene instead of letting nature take it's course. Examples of the effects of prayer is mentioned over and over again in the Bible and I believe prayer is still effective and relevant today. So, I sincerely say THANK YOU for your prayers on behalf of Isy and our family!



With love,

Leah

A very difficult day, bronchial angiogram #2

What a day we have had!

Isy had a significant amount of bleeding (coughing up blood) at 2am today. The doc was ready to put the breathing tube back in but he gave her a few more seconds and she was finally able to cough the blood out and get her breath back. As the doctor said, "this is scary for her, and it's scary for us too." A surgeon was up to see her first thing this morning. They are not ready to jump into surgery because her chest wall, lung, bronchial area is all different from the average person's due to the radiation therapy she had 33 years ago. Her anatomy is very different, with vessels that have formed that are not even in the textbook (they do expect the body to do that, it just doesn't help them right now). This altered anatomy will make healing very difficult. At least one or more of the vessels have broken and thus has created the bleeding. They decided to try embolization of the vessels one more time today. She was gone to Interventional Radiology for 4 very long hours while they searched for the leaking vessel. The doctor (who looked 15 yrs old) blocked one more vessel today and feels confident that this is the correct vessel because it looked like the dye leaked out of it when it was injected. Unfortunately the only way to tell if this is the correct one and that there are no more, is to wait and see if she will bleed again (the scary part mentioned above). She came back to ICU on the vent again (sigh). This will be easier on her body, both mentally and physically. If she bleeds, they can suction her easier and she already has a patent airway doing all of the work. It means she is sedated again and no more conversations with her, even if they were a little difficult and involved some lip reading last night. She seems to bleed during the night. (The poor night shift nurses!)



Shortly after she returned to ICU they did a chest x-ray and the doc didn't like what he saw. It appeared that her right lung had completely collapsed. It was a rush-rush-rush bronchoscopy procedure at the bedside. He found some very large blood clots in her bronchial area which he removed. Most likely these clots formed from blood that sat there and clotted. The clots acted as corks in a bottle, oxygen not getting around it very well at all. Within 1-2 hours the lung had fully re-inflated and he encouraged us by saying, "It looks much better now than it did 2 days ago."



Don and I left about 6pm. She's had a very long, difficult day. We are just a bit tired out too. I told Tony that the waiting around today was absolutely excruciating. I could think of 10 other NON-desirable places that I would rather be, than in this situation. I have had to question how much more emotional pain this family can take. She looked comfortable when we left, the machine rhythmically breathing for her. We made sure her feet were warm (something she regularly tells us to make sure we do for her some day in the nursing home...).



The doctors and nurses at EGH have done a wonderful job caring for her. There is no doubt that her life has been saved several times this week.

Thank you for your love and support. It has been a very long and painful 6 days so far, but made easier by your kind emails, texts, visits, phone calls and prayers.