Jeannette is improving today, fighting the good fight and continuting to surprise her doctors.   The enlargement of the right side of her heart has "improved" and seems to be "better."   Her oxygen levels have gotten better than they were earlier too, and so there is some optimism.  This ICU journey is one of ups and downs, highs and lows, and it is much easier to report the highs.    Like a soilder, she surprises everyone with her tenacity.  I am glad it is summer; the Alaskan summer sun gives us a long almost endless day, and that too seems to give hope.[...]

It is early here, but even so there are some things to report.   This is more technical, and I'm no doctor, but good news is hard to come by right now and this seems worth sharing.  Around midnight the medical team caring for Jeannette reports that her heart kicked back into a "sinus rhythm" where previously it has been in an "a-fib" status since the embolism.   Another "number" they had been worried about was a lactic acid count, and while that means little to me what I do know is that too had come down to a much better number.  There was another positive turn to indicate the infection issue is resolving itself.  And finally, her O2 blood saturation level is doing much better, so they were able to change the settings from the O2 concentration they were giving her from 100% down to 80%, while still gettting the same level of oxygen in her blood.  That means things are improving, her ability to oxygenate her blood is becoming more efficient and that means the hope continues.    [...]

Jeanette continues to fight, and even to surprise her medical team.   The diuretics they gave her worked better than expected, and the reduction in swelling seems to have stabilized her.   What I'm writing now is a non-medical person's understanding of what has gone on since.   Not giving up, it appears that the medical team were encouraged by her stability, and so they modified her meds to attack the embolism.  LIke a lot of things there is a give and a take, a risk and a reward, and when you are making life and death decisions I've come to accept and realize that medicine is as much an art as it is a science.  [...]

I had to edit the times--I guess I messed up my watch somehow and was too stressed to notice when I wrote the previous entry.   But my iPhone helped me figure that out, so hopefully I've fixed the update times and put things back in the correct sequence as they should be.   The important news is that Jeanette's is unchanged, except to say that the diuretics seemed to have removed a lot of swelling in her extremeties, and apparently that in turn has helped her blood oxygen levels.   She looks "good" to me, but I'm no doctor.   Still, without question her blood pressure is back to normal as her weakened heart fights on.   She is resting quietly, still fighting, that tenacity we all know well still her trademark.  The lines on the many monitors dance, and yet the scene is quiet; our hope still there and our prayers still strong.  [...]

Jeanette update--news has not improved unfortunately.   Dr. Delgado explained that there appears to have been a pulmonary embolism which is affecting her circulation.  The right atrium and ventricle of her heart has dilated and is now close to "failure."   That was the term the Dr used to describe the right side of her heart.    The current plan is to try and reduce the load on her heart, adding diuretics to reduce the body fluids to increase her circulatory response.   The doctor indicated it is an hour by hour thing at this point.   Father Luz from their church in Willow is here with her now, and we continue to pray for God's help at this critical time.[...]

Rich--Rich is restless, wanting to call his doctor, to take his tubes out, and to have someone check out his car.   He is talking more, trying to figure things out, but is still in a way in la-la-land for my non-medical thoughts.   That said, he and I talked about fishing, about getting him to the hospital ("what?  You mean Im in the hospital?").   His doctor said he is doing better, one day and a time; the concern remains the head impact and the bruising his frontal lobe took.   Time will tell us where that is.[...]

Evening update:  Sam reports that Jeannette is holding her own, and I can hear the tiredness in her voice as her long day ends.   She and the rest of us are all learning a great deal more about medicine that any of us would ever have imagined.  Jeannette's  blood pressure has been a concern today, and they have had to adjust her meds to keep it up into the normal range.  [...]

Mid-afternoon update.    Rich was given another CAT scan this morning, as the doctors wanted to check on everything.  Because he still is pretty confused, they wanted to especially recheck his head, to make sure that the head trauma he had in the accident wasn't bleeding, etc.   The CAT scan thankfully showed there was no bleeding and it looked "good".   The scan did reveal some fluid build up in his chest, so a drain was put in to take care of it.  The doctor said that was not an unexpected complication, and the overall situation with Rich is that he is continuing to improve, and his doctor feels we may see "significant improvements" over the next couple of days.   Right now the periods of alertness seems to be increasing, and his meds were modified to help this.   He has a 24/7 room sitter, in addition to the ICU staff, because when he wakes he is very confused, and has tried to unhook himself as if he wants to go somewhere.   [...]

Hi Everyone from Sam and Maryann...

We would like to first give a huge thanks to John Dieffenderfer for getting this site started and for so diligently updating with new posts. He has worked hard to ensure all of you have the information we know you so want along with making it easier for us and the ICU staff to focus on what we need to do.[...]

Just visited Jeannette.   Nothing new to report.  She is sleeping restfully, and she has lots of nurse attention and enough hoses and electronic monitors keeping her company that she looks like an astronaut getting ready for a space mission.   To me her color looks good.  [...]