Well, Lindsay had her first setback today. Her left chest cavity has filled back up with fluid so they are going to have to re-insert her left chest tube. (In the words of Lindsay... aww SHIT!... at least the doctor knew she was in there and understood.) Her doctor was a little concerned about this only because he doesn't know why it happened.
He did an ultrasound of her chest and there are no additional injuries that he could find so his only guess was that the arteries around the broken ribs were bleeding and that the blood/fluid was from those. He said if it stops they will just wait and see and then they will take out the tube in another day or two.
If it doesn't stop they will have to do surgery to possibly cauterize the blood flow. So right now they are prepping her for the tube and then it will just be wait and see. While he was in there he also explained to her all of her injuries so she now knows about all the organ damage and the broken bones and she seemed to handle it well.
Her breathing is back down to a normal rate 18 - 20 respirations per minute and her heart rate is down to 120 this morning. They have removed her fentynol drip and put her exclusively on morphine. (Probably much to her dismay)
She is on a basal level of 2.5 mg per hour of morphine (the doctor ordered 4 but the nurse said that their pumps don't go that high so they will have to see about that). She also has a PCA (patient controlled analgesia) that she can push every 10 minutes.
The neurosurgeon also stopped in to check on her. He said he would like to get the MRI done today or tomorrow but he was not too worried about the results. He thinks the breaking of the transverse processes was from muscles pulling them away and not from crushing. He said as long as there is no tendon damage or additional injuries she will only have a back brace for comfort.
If there are any additional injuries that are shown then there may be surgery in her future but he said they did not think that was going to be the case.
She is just now waiting on the orthopedic doctor as she is pretty concerned about her arm and not being able to squeeze or lift her fingers. So he should be there sometime this morning to speak with her.
Right now she is resting comfortable. The pastor just came to visit her and he is going to go back and offer up a prayer and hopefully some comfort to her before they insert the chest tube again.
Hopefully this is just a minor bump in the road and she will continue to move steadily forward from here.
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2 comments:
It sounds like she is in the right place and that she has a whole team of people working to keep her on a steady healing program. My prayers continue to flow toward her recovery!
Lindsey's done So well thus far so she's bound to have a few set backs but that is all they are , little bumps in the road to recovery. She'll set through this with time and all our prayers. Again props yo you Heather for the constant updates,speaking of Dr.s, you'll be one when its all over!! You and your family always in my prayers, KEEP IT UP!! your ALL doing great!!
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