Up in the chair

Isy has been up in the chair for most of this evening and said that she was much more comfortable sitting up. Her breathing is much, much better... still short of breath but not nearly as much. Her breaths are rapid and shallow enough that she is at risk for hyperventilating. They can tell this is happening by her blood gas levels. They are working at correcting that with focused deep breathing, coughing and working on her incentive spirometry and it seems to be getting a little better. Pain is under control. The 3 chest tubes are still what is bothering her the most. She tried to talk and hold a conversation but it was wearing her out quite a bit so she really won't be up to having visitors for several days. The plan is to keep her up in the chair during the night. She is much more comfortable this way, they can tip her feet up if she wants. The real "fun" part is that they require their patients to get up and walk at 4am, before the doctors come in to make their rounds. Doesn't that sound fun at 4am? I told Tony, patients are not in the hospital to rest... they are there to recover and rehab! LOL The resting part can come later at home.

It was a good day. It feels great to have it behind us. We feel so very thankful that the aortic stenosis was diagnosed and that there is a way to treat it and make her quality of life better. We are physically tired tonight, it was a long day, but really it was a good day for us. We didn't feel overwhelming anxiety or that the situation was out of control. We can certainly tell that people have been praying for us today. We sincerely thank you for your gift of intercession on our behalf.

We have been back at home for a few hours this evening and are regrouping and getting ready for the rest of the week. Tony and I are planning on going back to work tomorrow morning so the updates won't be coming as often. We'll just go with the mantra that no news is good news.

We love you guys. Thanks again for walking beside us. Good-night.