First Days Out

As good as it is not to be in the hospital we are now realizing how good our team was. While in the hospital Laura's pain was minimal as was the nausea and swelling.  Those are fond memories and are no longer the case.  

To say Laura is swollen is an understatement. The fact that she is so swollen and the skin is so tight is the cause of significant pain.  The doctors have prescribed a diuretic called Lasix that will hopefully start working soon. This should increase the amount of fluid that exits her body. If this edema continues and is not showing significant signs of diminishing by Tuesday they will readmit her and insert new chest tubes (smaller than before) to relieve the fluid.  

This morning was our first day of out patient doctor appointments. Today we had a CT scan which was the fastest appointment EVER as well as appointments with the lung function team and the pulmonologist.  The pulmonologist assisted with the change in meds to decrease the edema and was super supportive of where we are in the recovery process. Given the difficulty over the past 3 days it was good to have positive reinforcement.

We did receive some really exciting news today.  2 weeks ago today Laura had a FEV1 of 22%. The FEV1 is the measure of volume exhaled during the first second of forced expiratory maneuver started from the level of total lung capacity.  In short, deep breath and blow hard.  More technical information linked here.   Today in Spirometry her FEV1 was 72%. 72%! Amazing and it should continue to increase over the next 3-6 months as she starts to do more.  

Today we had our first home nurse visit to discuss some of the more complex medications that must be reconstituted.  Again, the UCSF team was excellent and made the learning simple.  Thank you again.

Thanks for the help from all of our SF friends.  Good to be back in the city.  First parking ticket already happened.  Totally blanked on street cleaning - #%$@ !  After 12 years in the city and 11+ in the burbs you forget the basics.  

Cheers,

The Z's