Sarah's had a quiet, very good day at home. She wanted to "sleep in," but gamely agreed to let her pacemaker talk to Stuart in the pacemaker lab at DHMC at 8 AM (Stuart said it was a stimulating conversation) followed by allowing the nurse from Critical Care Systems to draw some blood for the INR test to check on her blood thinning process. Then it was downstairs for breakfast (super charged strawberry banana smoothie with whey protein per Seddon's recipe), relaxing with some morning TV favorites, Facebook. For lunch, she finally got her favorite lean sandwich from Subway. We had tried this one day in the hospital, but it was too soon for her to tolerate, but no problem today!
Sarah's friend and colleague, Julia from the Disability Rights Center (where Sarah works) dropped by for a visit and brought Sarah a cool heart-shaped bamboo plant. They made plans for Sarah to drop by the office tomorrow at lunch time to say hello assuming she feels up to it.
The cardiology office at DHMC called with today's INR result (2.2). Since we are shooting for this to be between 2.5 and 3.5, it is still a little low. Her doctor would like to increase the Coumadin from 5 mg per day to 6 mg per day. We will recheck the INR tomorrow morning. This process is complicated by the fact that it takes 2 to 5 days for a change in Coumadin dose to be reflected in the INR test results. So today's result relates to the Coumadin dose she had last Monday or even last Saturday. I have the image of a dog chasing its tail, but hopefully this process will go quickly and smoothly.
Now what? We are so appreciative of the support and good karma that Sarah has received from all of you blog readers. I have no idea how many of you there are, but there have been almost 4000 pageviews in two weeks from 7 countries. I have no doubt that this support has helped Sarah (and us) survive this ordeal and has fueled Sarah's recovery so far. However, you must really have "day jobs" or other things to do. I'm worried that the continued saga here, as important as it will be to us, will begin to sound like the script for some reality TV show (do they have scripts?) if I were to describe what Sarah eats and what she does each. Or, portray the upcoming drama about which type of Medical Alert jewelry to choose - especially considering that Sarah does not generally like to wear jewelry of any kind (except rings).
I am a little in the habit of doing this, and I'll have to admit that it has been therapeutic for me at times. Most of the time, I have had to squeeze in a post in a free moment or at the end of the day, so most of them have been hurriedly written. God knows what would happen if I had more time to think about what I'm writing. And besides, I also have a "day job (or two)" which I love and miss - by the first of next week I need to be reentering that world as does Seddon.
So, I think posts here will need to become occasional instead of daily. Having created a journal of sorts of this experience for Sarah and her family, I suspect that I will want to continue for awhile longer on an irregular basis - at least until we feel that a new steady state has set in for our own personal reality show.
Sarah's friend and colleague, Julia from the Disability Rights Center (where Sarah works) dropped by for a visit and brought Sarah a cool heart-shaped bamboo plant. They made plans for Sarah to drop by the office tomorrow at lunch time to say hello assuming she feels up to it.
The cardiology office at DHMC called with today's INR result (2.2). Since we are shooting for this to be between 2.5 and 3.5, it is still a little low. Her doctor would like to increase the Coumadin from 5 mg per day to 6 mg per day. We will recheck the INR tomorrow morning. This process is complicated by the fact that it takes 2 to 5 days for a change in Coumadin dose to be reflected in the INR test results. So today's result relates to the Coumadin dose she had last Monday or even last Saturday. I have the image of a dog chasing its tail, but hopefully this process will go quickly and smoothly.
Now what? We are so appreciative of the support and good karma that Sarah has received from all of you blog readers. I have no idea how many of you there are, but there have been almost 4000 pageviews in two weeks from 7 countries. I have no doubt that this support has helped Sarah (and us) survive this ordeal and has fueled Sarah's recovery so far. However, you must really have "day jobs" or other things to do. I'm worried that the continued saga here, as important as it will be to us, will begin to sound like the script for some reality TV show (do they have scripts?) if I were to describe what Sarah eats and what she does each. Or, portray the upcoming drama about which type of Medical Alert jewelry to choose - especially considering that Sarah does not generally like to wear jewelry of any kind (except rings).
I am a little in the habit of doing this, and I'll have to admit that it has been therapeutic for me at times. Most of the time, I have had to squeeze in a post in a free moment or at the end of the day, so most of them have been hurriedly written. God knows what would happen if I had more time to think about what I'm writing. And besides, I also have a "day job (or two)" which I love and miss - by the first of next week I need to be reentering that world as does Seddon.
So, I think posts here will need to become occasional instead of daily. Having created a journal of sorts of this experience for Sarah and her family, I suspect that I will want to continue for awhile longer on an irregular basis - at least until we feel that a new steady state has set in for our own personal reality show.
Thanks again Carl for taking the time to write these thoughtful and moving updates for all of us who have the pleasure of knowing Sarah and her wonderful family.
ReplyDeleteIt's just plain nice of you to use this avenue to share this harrowing and healing event, and so unique to get the perspective of parents who are both MDs.