Update From the Nurse

The nurse just came out and told me that they are not going to do the bronchoscopy yet. She has some swelling on her left side that I expressed some concern about before I left and they want to do another x-ray to make sure everything is okay. The nurse mentioned that the swelling might actually be air from the lung.

Still... stuck... waiting... for... results...

Its a good thing I'm a patient guy.

Waiting While They're Testing

I had to leave the room so that the surgical team can work on cleaning out the clot in the chest tube. When he finishes, they will perform a bronchoscopy to get a better idea of how well the most recent treatments have worked.

Until then, I'm stuck in the waiting room just waiting on results.

Quick Update

Jenni appears to be doing a little better today. I didn't get the visitation hours problem fixed with the patient advocate, but he was at least able to get me Jenni's lab work each day and said that the visitation hours would be addressed later on. Most of her blood counts were closer to normal range and they didn't have to give her a blood transfusion today. The only exception is her number of platelets, so they were giving her more platelets when I left a few hours ago.

She coughed up some blood this morning (which scared me half to death) but the nurse said that it might be a good thing. If the blood is fresh, she is probably bleeding more, but if it is old, it may mean that her clotting has improved and her body is cleaning out the lungs naturally.

Her team of doctors is meeting this afternoon to discuss quite a few things (such as continuing the Factor VII, doing another bronchoscopy, and what to do about the chest tube) but I haven't heard any of their decisions yet so I'm still in the dark. Hopefully I'll be able to post some more definitive results soon.

Waiting Hours...

I'm a little less upset with the doctor I wrote about earlier. He made a point to speak to me when I came back in and he let me know everything that was going on. As long as he keeps me informed, I'm okay, although I still feel a little put off by not getting to be there for rounds.

I guess you could say that the team of doctors is working on a new game plan right now. They did another bronchoscopy this morning and informed me that the bleeding in her lungs is worse than it was last week when they did the first one. They also took some cultures, but they can't tell the results of those until later on. They have said before that they believe the condition of the lungs is driving all of her other problems and that the TTP is what likely created the bleeding in the lungs. 

The doctors are thinking about trying some special form of vitamin K, which they sometimes give to hemophiliacs to help form blood clots. They worry that the blood clots might be created where they wouldn't be advantageous (or perhaps make things worse), but now that they know that the lungs are worsening, they want to be more aggressive because it has become obvious that the treatments up to this point have not helped. They are also starting dialysis sometime this afternoon to remove some toxins from her blood that her kidneys aren't removing, and they are going to stop plasmapheresis for at least a day because it doesn't appear to be helping her.

Jenni looks peaceful. She is heavily sedated and has had quite a bit of pain medicine. Now I'm just waiting for the doctor to talk to me about vitamin K and for visiting hours to begin again so that I can go sit with her.