Philly News

Sorry for the delay in updating! Yesterday was a busy day. Bobby didn't start off on the best foot, but as the day went on he seemed to show more signs of getting back to his old self. My mom was due to fly out and Brogan and the rest of the family come up to see us in Philly. Unfortunately Brogan has a double ear infection, so it is just Bobby and I this weekend. I ran to the RMD House to check-out, but it took 1 hour each way to get to and from it because of the holiday weekend traffic! Bobby was so excited to move around that he walked the halls most of the day and fell soundly asleep at 6:00pm.

Despite a grumpy start this morning (Bobby dislikes any doctor or nurse now and says, "I don't want a boo-boo," anytime anyone walks into the room), we had a really nice day. We walked around a bit, played in the playroom, and hung out in our room. I was able to convince him to eat some goldfish crackers, pita bread, and pizza. The trickiest part has been getting him to drink. His sodium is low from the diuretics, so they would like him to drink anything but water. Guess what...all he wants to drink is water!? It is so unusual because he rarely asks for just water at home. Tonight they are starting him on oral diuretics. I am praying so hard that he responds well because that would be a great step forward. Here is where we are on the chest tube: Thursday-new chest tube 160cc came out during the procedure, Friday-Maybe 130 more cc came out and the nothing for about 8 hours, Saturday AM-Tube flushed and once we started moving around he has drained 150cc. However, when they tried to flush it this PM, they say that it may be blocked again! It was the cardiology fellow and resident who were working on it. They called cardiac surgery to see what to do, who said to continue working on it. This chest tube has been such a pain! To make matters more frustrating, I am not sure that it is being flushed as often as it should. Fortunately Bobby's cardiologist is the attending for the unit so she put orders in to have it flushed more. We will see what happens. Of course we would love him to no longer need it, but don't want it to be pulled prematurely and have another one put back in.

Well, I guess that is all of the update I have for now! From what I have heard, Kariem is doing well with his new heart and anxious to get to the step-down unit by all of his friends. A few other heart families could use your prayers as always...there are so many people going through tough battles around here.

Talk to you soon!!

Rachael