Saturday

Don and I went to visit mom late this afternoon. Dad had been with her all day, as always. The doctors finally got her on the TPN feeding through the IV, but unfortunately it was not all good news. The kidney doctor ordered the mixture, and apparently did not consult with the internist (who deals with mom's diabetic condition). The TPN formula was 70% dextrose... sugar. Not the best idea for a diabetic. The result was terribly high blood sugar that they were dealing with all day. They were checking her blood sugar hourly, and giving her insulin hourly, and by the time we had left they had not made much of a dent in bringing her blood sugar down. The next bag of TPN will have a totally different formula, much less sugar, much more protein. Hopefully tomorrow her blood sugar will be in better control.

They tried her on CPAP earlier today, which surprised us since they said they would leave her on full support all weekend. However, they ended up putting her back on full support - I believe because her blood gases report was not favorable after being on CPAP.

Today was another very rough day. She got a fever late this afternoon so she received tylenol, we had a cold wet washcloth on her forehead for hours and fanned her much of the time. Mom is in a lot of pain and very restless. Dad requested a Darvocet for her this evening which helped her to relax and get some rest. When the nurse gave her the medication she asked her to rate her pain level on a scale of 1 to 10, and she said 9. Her pain is all over, no specific location.