1/23/2008

I have been offline for two days. But now have a computer again.

From some questions I have been getting (sorry I can't respond to all) It seems I have not explained things too well here.

The reason Mom was bleeding from her esophagus is because she has something wrong with her liver. We were in the process of finding out what was wrong and she actually was scheduled for a biopsy the day after all of this happened. Dialysis will not work to help get her ammonia down. Which brings me to......her level is 54 today, still have 20 to go.

Today the Doctor may have to replace her breathing tube. And he is thinking of going into lungs and doing what he calls a bronchial scope to clean them out. She has thick mucus in there. They are not saying it is pneumonia, yet anyway.

Mom's blood sugars are high, but it is from stress, she is on insulin now. They are still giving her enemas every eight hours and that is what they are doing to get the ammonia level down. There is a medicine called lactolos, I am not sure of the spelling but it is what is cleaning her bowels to remove the ammonia.

I can't say she is out of danger yet, but the numbers are getting better. We found out yesterday that if she woke up she would probably be out of head, the ammonia level makes it that way. So that is why she gets so agitated when they quit giving her so much pain meds and sedatives. Plus all the tubes etc must be very painful and uncomfortable. It is good she has been oblivious.

Today I tried to clean up her hair, it was so matted, we haven't felt safe enough to try till now. I may try to wash it in a bucket tomorrow as I only got the preliminary off. She was on her way to dread locks!! At times I thought oh I should just cut it off. But she would be so unhappy if I did.