Grandma Update 3

Thank you so much for your email. This “report” on her is from our visits last night. We will have breakfast soon, and then we’ll head for the hospital.

Marie's condition is about the same, and is good is nearly every respect, really. She is awake and alert. She has responded well to the abdominal surgery and the medications. Her pain is way down, her white blood-cell count has dropped from the peak of over 18,000 down to a practically normal state (I forgot the most-recent blood-count, but something like 3,500 or 4,000, I THINK -- anyhow, whatever it is, the doctor was very pleased.) Her fever is also down from a high Tuesday afternoon of 102.8 degrees, to 98.4 yesterday (Wednesday) afternoon, which is all just great.

We feel the doctors are doing everything they can do right now, and that her body is responding really well. Her spirits remain high, and she is "normal" so far as the eye can see (for a patient who has had recent serious surgery, of course.) She enjoys company, chats with us when we visit her (2 at a time are the rules, but they relaxed them because they know so many of our family flew in from out-of-town), and if you didn't know the dangers associated with her condition and with the recent surgery, you wouldn't be at all concerned for her future.

The surgery went well and the sources of her abdominal infection have been located and corrected (we all believe and hope). Because her intestines have shut-down temporarily, she has a colostomy now, and is cheerful about that, offering to show it to anybody who is interested! There is much to be thankful for, and we ARE-- appreciating all the prayers from family and friends. Thank you!

She is still not allowed to drink any water, so they periodically swab out her mouth and lips with some sort of chemical moistener. She has a tube in her nose that gently sucks-out anything in her stomach, so I can't for the life of me understand why she couldn't have a little water to drink to wet her mouth. (It would get sucked-out immediately.) I must ask the doctor about that!

Marie is hooked up to monitors in the ICU, which show all pertinent info, such as her temperature, heartbeat rate, blood pressure, breathing rate, oxygen-saturation level, and the flow of the various liquids she has dripping into her veins (including quite a bit of blood plasma, which I guess is preferable in her situation to whole blood). The monitor that shows all these figures fascinate everybody who visits her, and we all spend some time starting at the numbers on the screen, as they change, along with beeps (from heart monitor) and the other sounds that device issues!

But the surgeon warned/reminded us that the possibility for additional future infection, while it has abated, is still lurking there. And so she remains in the ICU ward where she is monitored and under a nurse's care 24 hours a day. (The nurse who cares for her is assigned only two patients -- Marie and one other -- and they are all just wonderful. So she is in the best possible care as far as we can see and understand.)

Really, to summarize, Marie's status now is everything that we had hoped/prayed for, and we know that things could surely be much, much worse. Signs are good, as I said -- as good as we could expect at this point. So naturally we are, with the surgeon, "cautiously optimistic", hoping for the best, but knowing that, as the doctor told us that first night, "she is still not out of the woods yet."

We thank you for your email, phone-calls, and your interest and faith and prayers in Marie's recovery. Our six children are assembling, because of the seriousness of her condition. Kathy and Glen arrived on planes last night, so now everybody is here except Linda, who is "supervising" the arrival of her latest granddaughter this morning in Idaho! She will arrive tomorrow, I think, probably just as soon as that new baby is held and admired sufficiently!

Again, thank you all for your support. These are tough and serious times for our family. We know Marie is in God's hands now, because the doctors have done and are doing all they possibly can do now. Please do not send flowers for Marie -- they have restrictions in ICU, so she wouldn't be able to enjoy them if you DID send them! (I will let you know when she is well enough to go to a regular hospital room, but that won't be for a week or 10 days, we are told to expect.)

Also, again, thank you for your great offers, but please do not send us any food! I guess that our eating habits are suffering a little, because we are adapting our schedules to spending as much time as we can with Marie, and we grab something to eat in small groups here and there, usually in the hospital cafeteria.

Marie says to "thank everybody", and I do. And I express my own appreciation for your care and concern, also. Thank you.

Love to all,
Bill Houghtaling