Say no to pneumonia

One of the major concerns of our doctors is the onset of pneumonia in JoDee’s left lung. This lung is badly damaged as it was punctured by some of the ribs. This has resulted in some significant bruising and bleeding in that lung. The best solution, at this stage, is to improve breathing to more fully expand the lungs and help get oxygen to some of the damaged areas, and assist in mitigating the negative effects of excessive fluid in the lung.

As you may know, or can imagine, breathing with one broken rib, let alone multiple, can be an excruciating experience. So pain management is the name of the game. The goal here is to get JoDee stable enough (actually an issue with her blood being able to properly coagulate) to allow for an epidural to be placed. This would allow the doctors to control the pain in a very specific area of her body, with a much lower dose of heavy narcotics. She has been getting doses of potassium and plasma to help increase the ability of her body to stop bleeding. Bleeding around the spinal cord due to the placement of a needle is not a risk neither I nor the doctors are willing to take. Having the epidural will allow her to take deeper breaths more comfortably, without causing the nausea, dizziness and drowsiness of the narcotics.

Until this morning JoDee’s pain has been managed by hourly injections of fentanyl. This has been a bit of a challenge as it clears her system within the hour which produces considerable swings in levels of pain. Her pain levels have been fluctuating hour by hour, making her quite uncomfortable for most of the time. The reason for the hourly injections was to better identify the status of her head trauma. They were able to conclude that the issues relating to the head trauma had resolved to a much lower threat level. This allowed for the “good juice” to be delivered on a continual basis via I.V.. Needless to say, with pain management now better under control, JoDee has been able to get a lot of sleep.

I had a chance to sit down with Sadie and Zack tonight before tucking them in bed (hadn’t done that since Friday night) and talk to them about JoDee and why she is in the hospital. Something I have not had the chance to do until this evening when Dad took my place at the hospital so I could run home for a bit. I mentioned to the kids that even after mommy comes home it will take her a long time to heal so we’ll have to help her. Zack immediately asked “daddy, how long, like maybe…um… one hundred thousand million days?”. Gotta love kids.

Goal for tomorrow: get the blood to cooperate so that it is safe to place an epidural.

Time to get some sleep.