My Newborn

Loren and his new heart are officially one day old. I'm not sure how he will be counting his age from this point on. When he came out of that horrible situation 10 years ago, having been taken to the hospital "a dead man," he talked as if he were starting over. I suppose he'll try and claim he's not 53 anymore.

Loren continues to be given good progress reports every time he is visited by the doctors. His artificially paced rhythm has been moved from 110 down to 90. Every so often his heart gets through a beat of it's own, now, which is good. They will leave his chest tubes in for another day to see if any more fluid needs to be drained away from his heart area.

I couldn't be-GIN to tell you all of his meds, (well, I could, but that would be way too much trouble....:-) but I'll try to give a brief overview.

He is on several antibiotics, prophylactically. ( Prophylatically: an intimidating word which simply means, "We juss wants to make sure he don't get sick, girl!") He will be taken off one of those today.

Loren is being started on an immunosuppresant drug. It was given to him at the time of surgery, and is being started up again until they change him to Prednisone, which will be his main immunosuppressant for life. (I think) But, this current med, called something like, "T-5-oh 4" (just pick some random letters and numbers and you'll be close) has to have 3 pre-meds before they give the actual immunosuppressant. (you know, "oh T-5 gooble-t-gook")

ANYWAY, he was given benedryl, to prevent an allergic reaction, Tylenol, to prevent possible fever, and.... um.... something else. Soon after this he got the shakes, which is apparently a common reaction to transplant surgery.There is still anesthesia in his system. Of course, knowing Loren, he just HAS to figure out the best way to manage all these symptoms. "Do I do this? Do I Do that?" He will have to learn to just get through some stuff.

Drugs like Epinepherine (promotes heart beat-I guess) and the immunosupressants can cause blood sugars to rise, so they keep close tabs with lots of lab draws. Thankfully, he has SO many IV ports, that they get all his blood without additional pokes. He has been on and off IV insulin to counteract rising blood sugar. That, too, is par for the course with transplant.

I just came from a somewhat frustrating session with Loren. He was positive he had written down some information on a sheet of paper, discussed it with the transplant coordinator, and found out vital information concerning the rest of the family. He was most worried that this info would get misplaced or lost, or not be acted upon. He wanted EVERY med written down with the time it was given.

The nurse and I were trying to assure him that everything was in the computer. We were checking through old papers from the previous hospital room. We could not satisfy him. Then I remembered something that had happened 10 years ago.

When Loren presented with cardiac arrest, he was basically unconscious for most of a week. When he woke up, he didn't even remember he was married. He thought all the people visiting him were from Indiana, from where we had recently moved. In fact, he thought HE was in Indiana. Every day the situation became more understandable to him.

So, I reminded Loren of that time and said I thought it was possible he was mixing up two different situations and times. He still has anesthesia in his system, and that stuff does funny things to your memory. He lost about 2 weeks of his short term memory back in 95, and he may have lost a day or two with this experience. But, there is nothing wrong with his head, just lots and lots of medications. I knew he was needing to nap, but I didn't want to leave him in that agitated state.

But after I reminded him about his first experience, he said, "Oh, maybe you're right." He promptly closed his eyes and started to nod off.

I'm gonna hafta keep that one in my bag of tricks.

Tweet