Monday

I went in early this morning,which allowed Harold the opportunity to go up to Prince of Peace and count money with his counting group. It has been awhile since he has been able to do that. I imagine it was nice for him, and nice for the group to get to talk with him and send their good wishes for Dorothea.

She was very sad when I arrived this morning. We cried together for awhile, and then we both got ourselves together. Does no good to cry - but you know you just have to do it sometimes. She was on dialysis early today - started at 6:30. They took off 2 Liters of fluid.

Dorothea has been receiving 30ml of feeding per hour. Harold read the nutritional information for Dorothea's peg tube feeding today and calculated that they have only been giving her 720 calories a day. Obviously she does not need as much as you or I since she is laying in bed, but he figures that she needs to have at least twice what they have been giving her. However, her stomach at this point can't handle it, so she needs to get calories another way. Her nutrition is really lacking we feel. Harold talked to many, many doctors and nurses and the dietician... he believes that tonight they will start her on the TPN - that is the feeding that goes through the IV. So, she should be receiving both feedings now - IV and peg tube. They are also talking about the possiblity of adding powder supplements to the feedings. All of this has to be discussed by multiple doctors to make sure that everyone agrees. They have their team meetings on Tuesday, so all of this should be discussed on Tuesday.

She had multiple low blood sugars today...with the change in feeding, there may be more issues with blood sugar tomorrow, we shall see.

They put her on CPAP (pressure support) mode on the vent today. She had been on it for at least 4 hours before Harold left. She was keeping her numbers in a normal range. I am pretty sure they will limit it and put her back on full vent over night. But it is good that they are continuing to try to wean her from the vent.

John came up and spent a few hours with Dorothea, I am sure she really enjoyed that. He was out of town this weekend, so it was a good chance to catch up.