Sept 5 (Wednesday) - 1115pm

Tonight's update is another "good news" update, with a reflection on luck as Anchorage was pounded by a major storm.   The news from Jeannette's room is all good; Rich had a good 4 hour visit, and Sam and Sully and the "gang" left the two of them "solo" for a while, which let Rich take care of the lunch time feeding.  From the reports he did well, and I have heard he was really excited to show Jeannette the "FaceTime" feature of the iPad, and I can equate to that as I use it all of the time when I am traveling overseas.   

I don't have a lot of details for today, other than to report that Jeannette chowed down on a spaghetti dinner, with cottage cheese on the side, and she was feeling better than yesterday and was gaining strength.  There was even some talk about perhaps "fixing" one of her knees sooner than they had planned, but I have no details on that other than Rich mentioned it as the output of a conversation that happened with one of the doctors.   As of a short while ago, Jeannette was sleeping, and the quiet steady beat of the ICU was returning to normal after a very hectic last 24 hours.

The reflective part of tonight's message though comes as I think that it was only a very short time ago that Jeannette was needing a ventilator to breath, and last night that progress she has made played out in a very important way.   As the storm pounded Anchorage, with winds nearing a 100 mph and rain slamming across the city, the power went out over major areas across town.  South Anchorage had huge trees falling all over the place, and even Joyce had a big tree come apart over her home, with a 10" branch breaking off across the garage and then hanging precariously over her car.  But there was no damage done at Joyce's home, although it was a very close call.  

As for Jeannette, and the ICU, well it turned out the storm reaped it's own havoc there too, as the power grid went out at the St Elias sometime last last night.   At first everything was fine, as the backup generator kicked in and did what backup generators are supposed to do.   But the phones went out at the hospital, and so Sam was unable to find out what was going on.   They came back on, and then went down again, and at one point Sam did get through and found out that the power was out but that "everything was OK and the generator was working."    

Then, sometime later, the hospital switchboard went down again, and the backup generator failed apparently at about the same time.  The net result was anything but good!   As the all important backup generator went down, the entire hospital was plunged into darkness, with several battery backups calling out RED ALERTS in one ICU room after the other.   Needless to say, It was not the night you wanted to be working at the hospital!  

And for all of the patients on ventilators, their machines shut down and failed when the backup generator failed, and so the only option at that point was for the medical team to split forces and then to rush into each room and manually do the breathing for each patient that was relying on a ventilator to stay alive.   I am not a medical person, and don't know exactly how that was done, but it's my understanding that they use some kind of plastic "bag" that they squeeze by hand to move air for a person who cannot breath on their own.   And of course, they had to do this for each and every patient that was on a ventilator and couldn't breath on their own.    Needless to say, it was a mini-nightmare at Jeannette's ICU facility, and its hard to imagine all of the monitors and alarms suddenly going into battery mode and failing one by one.   

But, by the grace of God, Jeannette was not impacted.   She has been breathing on her own for many days now, and there is no longer any ventilator in her room, and so she has no imperative need for electrical power.   I supposed she couldn't raise or lower her bed during the "crises" and her fancy air puff Star Wars "socks" as I call them probably didn't do much, and for sure a few of her monitors didn't monitor anything, but other than that, she was not affected by the power outage that turned the ICU upside down.   The good news from the hospital is that every patient came out OK, and apparently the medical team dealt with the crises and they kept the patients breathing manually until the power was restored.   But in my way of thinking, it had to have been a very scary night, and so I am incredibly thankful that Jeannette has progressed to the point that she was not directly affected.

I do have one thing to report on Rich which I find somewhat amusing, and is a clear indicator that's he getting better fast.   Sometime in the afternoon as he was getting ready to leave the hospital, he mentioned that his stomach wasn't feeling all that great.   But he had been there for about 4 hours, and had been drinking quite a bit of coffee without much else to eat, and so the upset stomach sort of went with the territory.   Then on the way home he mentioned that he was "really hungry" and so Sully and Rich took a detour and stopped for dinner.   Where you ask?   Where would YOU go if your stomach wasn't in top form?   Well, Rich picked Jalapeños Mexican Restaurant!    Yeah....Jalapeños!  And, apparently, afterward his stomach felt great!  Yeap, just peachy from what I heard.   But I think Sully came home and took a double dose of Alka-Seltzer, or something equivalent.   I had to smile.       

With nothing else to report, I'll just end this by saying that the storm has passed, and most of the power is back on in Anchorage, although about half the street lights are still out and Sam reported she was packing her suitcase using a Coleman lantern and wearing some polar fleece to stay warm.   (Joyce's home is still in darkness and the heat isn't on.)   The big plan is for Sam to head home tomorrow night, and Rich's sister Maryann is coming back into town to take her place.

So, in summary, Jeannette (and Rich) had a great day together, and she had a good day and made more progress in the right direction. - John