Welcome all of Patti's friends and family. I am starting this blog to keep her friends and family updated on her status. Check back here often as I will try and update every couple hours or as needed. For those of you who do not know I will start with how we got to where we are today.
Just before Easter Patti went into the hospital with difficulty breathing and chest pains. They thought she has pneumonia and sent her home. On Saturday night (April 18) Joe took her back to the hospital because she was having a lot more trouble breathing. She was stabilized and we thought she was on the road to recovery.
Joe got a call early Tuesday morning that she had an incident with her heart and that she had been moved to the ICU and put on life support. The doctors are still not sure if it was a heart attack or not. When we all got the hospital it was explained that her arteries were very blocked and this was causing extra stress on her heart which then caused her to produce fluid that was backing up in her lungs. She never really had pneumonia but her condition really stemmed from her issues with her heart.
The doctors did an angiogram Tuesday afternoon and initially thought there was nothing they could do because her arteries were too blocked and it would be too risky to try and perform any procedures. Luckily, her cardiologist came back yesterday (Wednesday) and said that she had been consulting with various other cardiologists and doctors and she now thought that Patti should have cardiac bypass surgery or stents put in her heart.
It sounds like the best option that would give Patti the longest life span and the best quality of life would be the bypass surgery but because she is diabetic there are other concerns. First they need to see if she has a usable vein in her leg that they can use. Also her ability to heal afterwards is a worry. In order to find out if she has a vein they can use she will need a vein mapping procedure which is done via ultrasound. This procedure cannot be done at the Kaiser hospital so she will need to be transferred to Mercy. If they can find a usable vein then she will remain at Mercy as that is where the bypass surgery will be done.
Her cardiologist would like her to be off the ventilator prior to being moved to Mercy. Everyday they are doing vent tests (turning down the ventilator) and checking to see if she can breathe effectively on her own. Once she can they will remove the ventilator and she will be transferred to Mercy, have the scans done and hopefully undergo bypass surgery on Monday (April 27).
Please check back here often as I will update as new events occur. You also can e-mail me at MsSteffee@aol.com if there is an update you would like me to post.
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Karen K. here.
ReplyDeleteI love this poem by Nancy Shaffer called Mending. Whether or not Patti's body will mend, her dear, generous friends continually mend her sweet soul. And thank you for that.
Mending
How shall we mend you, sweet Soul?
What shall we use, and how is it
in the first place you've come to be torn?
come sit. Come tell me.
We will find a way to mend you.
I would offer you so much, sweet Soul:
this banana, sliced in rounds of palest
yellow atop hot cereal, or these raisins
scattered through it, if you'd rather.
Would offer cellos in the background singing
melodies Vivaldi heard and wrote
for us to keep. Would hold out to you
everything colored blue or lavender
or light green. All of this I would offer you
sweet Soul. All of it, or any piece of it,
might mend you.
I would offer you, sweet Soul,
this chair by the window, this sunlight
on the floor and the cat asleep in it.
I would offer you my silence,
my presence, all this love I have,
and my sorrow you've become torn.
How shall we mend you, sweet Soul?
With these, I think, gently
we can begin: we will mend you
with a rocking chair, some raisins,,
a cat, a field of lavender beginning
now to bloom. We will mend you with songs
remembered entirely the first time
ever they are heard.
We will mend you with pieces of your own
sweet self, sweet Soul--with what you've taught
from the very beginning.