My partner, Sharon, is in the ICU and not doing well.
On Friday evening, she fell and hit her head. I don't know all the in-between details, but she was missing for several hours before we found her. Later that night, she started seizing repeatedly and was rushed to the hospital. Even with all the medicatons they gave her to stop her from seizing, she still continued to have small seizures in her legs until the next evening.
In the midst of all this, they had to use the paddles on her heart sometime Saturday morning. The medications that finally stopped the seizures made her blood pressure skyrocket, so they had to give her something to bring that back down. She's pretty much stable, although she's been in a chemically-induced coma and breathing with the help of a ventillator for a couple days now. They just put a main-line IV in her chest today because they're giving her so many medications that the small line in her arm couldn't handle it all.
It's killing me right now, being so far away. She has her own version of Napoleon named Charlie; he's been taking shifts with her mom to be there with her and he's calling me with updates. She's at Ben Taub Hospital in Houston. I don't know much about them. Charlie seems to think they're good.
I found out that she didn't actually arrest, which is what Charlie originally thought happened when they had to use the paddles. Something happened with her heart as a result of the seizures or something; I don't really understand. Either way, they used the paddles on her. The ventilator is because she's so medicated right now that if they didn't use it, she wouldn't breathe.
They suctioned her lungs today to make sure there's no fluid built up and I guess she coughed or something, which they say is promising. Tomorrow or the next day they'll try lowering the dosages and trying to wake her up.
My friend, Rachel, is a nurse whose specialty is trauma/surgery ICU. She told me a few things that helped me understand better:
"There are only a few "shockable" cardiac rhythms (of which a stopped heart, asystole, or a flat line is not one), no matter what they show on TV. That means that her heart was pumping on its own, just not very effectively when they used the paddles. We do that to reset the electrical impulses so that they fire in the right order. It is very good that she has a gag/ choke reflex because it means she is just sedated or paralyzed chemically."
We still don't know what's wrong. Please say a prayer for us, light a candle, or do whatever you can to send healing energy her way.
On Friday evening, she fell and hit her head. I don't know all the in-between details, but she was missing for several hours before we found her. Later that night, she started seizing repeatedly and was rushed to the hospital. Even with all the medicatons they gave her to stop her from seizing, she still continued to have small seizures in her legs until the next evening.
In the midst of all this, they had to use the paddles on her heart sometime Saturday morning. The medications that finally stopped the seizures made her blood pressure skyrocket, so they had to give her something to bring that back down. She's pretty much stable, although she's been in a chemically-induced coma and breathing with the help of a ventillator for a couple days now. They just put a main-line IV in her chest today because they're giving her so many medications that the small line in her arm couldn't handle it all.
It's killing me right now, being so far away. She has her own version of Napoleon named Charlie; he's been taking shifts with her mom to be there with her and he's calling me with updates. She's at Ben Taub Hospital in Houston. I don't know much about them. Charlie seems to think they're good.
I found out that she didn't actually arrest, which is what Charlie originally thought happened when they had to use the paddles. Something happened with her heart as a result of the seizures or something; I don't really understand. Either way, they used the paddles on her. The ventilator is because she's so medicated right now that if they didn't use it, she wouldn't breathe.
They suctioned her lungs today to make sure there's no fluid built up and I guess she coughed or something, which they say is promising. Tomorrow or the next day they'll try lowering the dosages and trying to wake her up.
My friend, Rachel, is a nurse whose specialty is trauma/surgery ICU. She told me a few things that helped me understand better:
"There are only a few "shockable" cardiac rhythms (of which a stopped heart, asystole, or a flat line is not one), no matter what they show on TV. That means that her heart was pumping on its own, just not very effectively when they used the paddles. We do that to reset the electrical impulses so that they fire in the right order. It is very good that she has a gag/ choke reflex because it means she is just sedated or paralyzed chemically."
We still don't know what's wrong. Please say a prayer for us, light a candle, or do whatever you can to send healing energy her way.
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