Friday 12/28/18

Meghan had an ok night. Labs are looking better this morning, hemo is at 9.8. White is higher but expected from the back to back surgeries. Doctors changed her dressing up and vitals look decent. Only thing was her potassium was a little low so they gave her something for that. Goal for the rest of today is just resting and to get off the heavier medications. They will slowly be lowering them and the vent settings. 

Thursday 12/27/18

Doctors changed her dressing around 5am and saw no active bleeding and drains have slowed down. Late morning they did another labs and it  was back down to 6.9 again, they gave her a unit of blood. For now doctors have decided to keep her on the vent to keep her comfortable. ACES doctors called Rob around 2pm and she is still bleeding. They were checking her dressing and saw bright red. They do think it’s something they will be able to fix vascular so the doctors are with Meghan now to come up with a plan for surgery. Also mentioned at some point they want to put a stent in the pancreas to stop it from leaking and oozing. While waiting for an OR they redid labs and hemo was back down to 6.4 so she will be getting 2 units of blood before surgery. Went to surgery around 615-630pm and we didn’t hear until 1045pm. When they got down there the bleeding had stopped again. they did see an artery they believe was the cause of the bleeding. It was the artery that went into her spleen and did “coiling” to close it off. They will not do a stent for the pancreas until all the bleeding is under control and inflammation is down. Also a dye test was done in the pancreas and it didn’t show anything leaking right now. Ventilator will remain on again tonight. Fingers crossed this was the fix. 

Wednesday 12/26/18

so unfortunate news, Meghan will probably be in ICU longer than we thought. She had some clotting again in her abdomen and her hemoglobin dropped to 6.9. She received 3 units of blood and 2 of plasma. The official read of the CT came back and they saw a large clot in her abdomen near the pancreas. They put Meghan on a medication to treat as if the pancreas is oozing/leaking again. She is going to the OR for minimally invasive surgery. They believe she is bleeding due to the output from her drains. So in surgery they did find where she was bleeding and it had slowed down by the time they got her to the OR. It was an oozing bleed again and they put a special gel foam instead of packing to prevent a secondary surgery to remove packing. They did say to Rob they removed a ton of clots in her abdomen. The doctors believe that Meghan’s blood is thinning from malnutrition, inflammation and the pancreas. Doctors are going to change up the mixture of TPN she is getting to help. Around 7pm she started to bleed again. When they were taking her off the vent after surgery she had a coughing/gagging fit. When this happened she dislodged her abdomen muscle. They put a new pressure dressing on and have it under control. Doctors are going to leave her on the vent overnight to keep her comfortable. Around 10pm they gave her a unit of blood and plasma as precaution but she is not currently bleeding. We are hopeful for a calm night. 

Tuesday 12/25/18

They ended up taking off the skin graft that was just placed and there was some clotting under that. The bleeding and clotting was only in that area. She was moved back to SICU (Surgical ICU) for a 48 hour evaluation. They did the CT and no major bleeds were showing. Very eventful morning but she is now resting and hopefully will be back to the immediate care with no issues. Hope you all had a good Christmas and also thank you for the continued prayers ❤️

Tuesday 12/25/18 - as of now

Meghan was up most of the night and and around 3am she threw up. The tube in her nose got clogged from her stomach bile. They cleared it and it is fixed. Also her vac on her abdomen was clogged so they needed to clear that and now it is playing catch up. Her heart rate has been elevated for the last 90 mins so they are watching that. X-ray is coming up to make sure the tube is placed correctly in her nose. Her sugar is normally a little high but it came back at 395. They gave her some insulin. Nurses think she could be bleeding from the output of her drains. ACES has been paged to come to do a full evaluation. Rob is telling us she is pale and doctors are waiting for labs to come back. Her hemo dropped to 6.1 so they are giving her blood. Her sugar came back again at 400. ACES is currently looking at her vac bedside. 

Monday 12/24/18

Meghan had a good night rest. Labs were done today. Meghan’s white count is still higher at 22 but doctors still aren’t concerned with the rise since she had surgery. She stood today for 20 mins at 60 degrees and then back into her chair for about 2 hours. Meghan again is resting and just watching some tv. 

Sunday 12/23/18

Overnight for Meghan was pretty calm, she was just a little anxious. Meghan had another visit with Hunter for the day, which they both really enjoyed. Starting tomorrow they are going to try and get her to do standing three times a day as she can tolerate. Speech will be back after Christmas to do another swallow test. Meghan’s plan for the rest of the afternoon and night is just to get some rest.