Virginia was intubated at approx. 10:25 am (Sat).

She did not "crash" or anything we are just keeping ahead of the problem.

Her blood pressure is good.

This morning (Saturday) at 8:00 am Dr. Park called and the decision to intubate her was made.

She just isn't heading in a good direction yet. We have to keep her from heading in a bad direction.

Her mom will visit this afternoon about 1:30pm. Mike and Michele (brother & SIL) will visit a little later in the afternoon.

As usual, prayers are appreciated.

I visited after work Tuesday afternoon.

Virginia called me about 11:30 pm and said she wasn't feeling well. I went over. Shortly after my arrival she wanted to sit up as she wasn't getting enough oxygen. She sat up on the edge of the bed as she frequently did before.

Several nurses came in to help. She was in acute respiratory distress and generally "panic-y" for air. One of the nurses said she looked "blue in the face" and said she was calling 9-1-1. I supported that.

I told them to take her across the street to Tuality Community Hospital. That way the trip was very short(two blocks).

While she went in through the emergency entrance I went to get her registered. I went home to get my wallet and came back. She was in ultrasound where they discovered a blood clot in her leg.

They admitted her to the critical care unit (not quite intensive care) around 03:00 am for about a day. Then she went to 5 East which is a med-surg floor where most patients are on heart monitors (the old "EKG" for electrocardiogram). She transfered to 5 East Thursday around the end of day shift.

She was put on a Bi-Pap machine in CCU and it was taken to 5 East (Rm 512) when she transfered. The Bi-Pap resembles a C-Pap setup with which many of you may be familiar in that it has a special mask and delivers oxygen with the help of some pressure. Only the Bi-Pap machine is much bigger and is supplied with a much bigger hose (it look like a small green garden hose). The mask muffles the patient's voice so telephone communication is not feasible.

On Friday at noon Dr. Park ordered some steroids to help maintain her airway. Apparently the medication was not forth coming fast enough from the telemetry floor, so she moved her to ICU. The ICU has their own pharmacy and can move faster.

So, recap.

Virginia's diagnosis includes a leg blood clot (DVT, deep vein thrombosis), anemia (for which she received blood), and hypoxia (low blood oxygen). She has a hypoventilatory syndrome.Basically she is being treated for her symptoms (keep her breathing) monitor blood chemistry (her blood CO2 is way high) and look for a definitive problem if possible.

She continues to be very uncomfortable in the bed. She notes that her paraspinal muscles from her neck to her sacral region on the right are painful. I have tried every bed position without much relief. Being rotated to the left seemed to help some. I finally started massaging her muscles early Saturday am (02:00).

Then I went home at 2:30 am.

I will update you on Virginia's condition in two parts.

First I will tell you what has happened since the last blog update.

Second I will tell you what has happened this week since Tuesday (see next post).

Virginia is still totally non-weight bearing with her right foot. She is still not at home and has been at Hillsboro Rehab. She has been exercising in therapy sessions on Monday's, Wednesday's, Thursday's and Friday's. On Tuesday's we generally go to the Adventist Wound Clinic to see her podiatrist. She does not have therapy on the weekends.

She has been gradually increasing the time she can stand on her left leg (wound is on the right).
Initially, she could stand only 15-20 seconds but has worked up to a five minute stand. She is also doing upper body exercises. She gets sore after the upper body work.

If you use your left hand to form a letter "C" with your thumb and index finger you will have the shape and approximate size of her surgical wound. The "C" shaped flap is healing very well. The
bottom of the "C" where the old wound was located is healed over well. The skin edges were well approximated during surgery. The side of the "C" is quite narrow now (was about 1/2" apart). The top of the "C" started with about an inch to heal across and is now quite small. The place where her arch should be is still convex instead of arched (concave). The good news is that the doctor thinks we can avoid a second sugery which would have been to put in a skin graft.

The travel to the wound clinic has been troublesome. She usually goes by wheelchair via the TriMet Lift. We have had two problems. One is that she had a very hard time squeezing into the 20" wheelchair one week. The next week she wouldn't fit at all. We put her in a bigger chair (28") but it didn't fit on the TriMet system. So we bagged the clinic visit (June 27). We also did not go to the clinic the following week because of holiday closure (July 4th). Her foot wound is healing nicely so the podiatrist is happy and will see her July 11th.

The second problem was running out of oxygen. We took a small tank that should have been adequate but it just wasn't enough. On June 27th we had two small tanks but didn't make the trip.