Doctors Don't Work Weekends
Ginger is out of the ICU and in a regular hospital room.
They pulled the IV out of her arm and took her off the heart monitor. When she checked in her face was ghost white from the blood loss. Her heart had been working extra hard to make up for the reduced number of red cells. Her calcium level had been screwed up and the combination of the extra work and the off balance blood chemistry had put her heart muscle at serious risk.
It's frustrating because of the large number of doctors that are working on her case all focus their own specialized area. Doctor A can't do anything until Doctor E finishes his tests and Doctor B can't start her examination until Doctor C shows up. The doctors that check in most often to see if we have questions are the ones with the least info. The doctors with the important info we want don't appear for more than 15 seconds every 6-8 hours.
"There haven't been any orders for that." is the most common answer we get.
I'm not 100% sure if she was moved from ICU because there had been a definite sign of improvement or merely because she just didn't look sick enough.
Ginger's energy level seemed better, but her temperature was still slightly elevated. No one's tested her hemoglobin since she was moved and a nurse took her temperature just because I asked him to.
The colonoscopy examination turned up negative. There was no indication that a spot in her large intestine was bleeding. This wasn't entirely unexpected as the condition of the blood Ginger was passing resembles what the doctors wold expect from a spot much higher in the digestive tract. The blood gets worked over by enzymes and acids as it passes through the body, so more chemical changes means the earlier in the process that the blood cells entered the digestive system.
Ginger's been examined by cameras on fiber optic cables from both ends of her digestive system. So the long, tangled, narrow passages of her small intestine is the only area left unexamined.
If I understand the information that I got second-hand from one of the nurses, the plan is to use a miniature video recorder the size of medicine capsule. Ginger swallows the self-contained recorder and waits several days for it to traverse her system. The video footage is downloaded from the capsule and examined to see if the problem area can be identified.
Ginger would then undergo traditional surgery to make any needed repairs.
I think.
The subject was not really an area the nurse was familiar with. And I assume a lot would depend on what they actually find in the examination.
In the meantime, Ginger gets no food but jello and clear liquids. And she fights with the nurses over her insulin dosages. Both of which are guaranteed to boost her crankiness quotient to record heights.
Hospitals love to starve patients on the rationale that they could be going into surgery at any moment; all the while piling on delay after delay that pushes that surgery back for days or weeks. A surgeon just wants to keep you alive, he doesn't give a damn about keeping you comfortable--that's the anesthesiologist's job.
I worry that Ginger was taken out of Intensive Care because she complained too much rather than because there was a medically sound indication that her condition was improving. If you are well enough to piss off your doctor, you can't be that sick right?
In any case we won't be seeing any progress until Monday when the doctors return. The video pill examination would take the average person 3 days to get any results to examine. In Gingers case that probably means at least another week in the hospital.
They pulled the IV out of her arm and took her off the heart monitor. When she checked in her face was ghost white from the blood loss. Her heart had been working extra hard to make up for the reduced number of red cells. Her calcium level had been screwed up and the combination of the extra work and the off balance blood chemistry had put her heart muscle at serious risk.
It's frustrating because of the large number of doctors that are working on her case all focus their own specialized area. Doctor A can't do anything until Doctor E finishes his tests and Doctor B can't start her examination until Doctor C shows up. The doctors that check in most often to see if we have questions are the ones with the least info. The doctors with the important info we want don't appear for more than 15 seconds every 6-8 hours.
"There haven't been any orders for that." is the most common answer we get.
I'm not 100% sure if she was moved from ICU because there had been a definite sign of improvement or merely because she just didn't look sick enough.
Ginger's energy level seemed better, but her temperature was still slightly elevated. No one's tested her hemoglobin since she was moved and a nurse took her temperature just because I asked him to.
The colonoscopy examination turned up negative. There was no indication that a spot in her large intestine was bleeding. This wasn't entirely unexpected as the condition of the blood Ginger was passing resembles what the doctors wold expect from a spot much higher in the digestive tract. The blood gets worked over by enzymes and acids as it passes through the body, so more chemical changes means the earlier in the process that the blood cells entered the digestive system.
Ginger's been examined by cameras on fiber optic cables from both ends of her digestive system. So the long, tangled, narrow passages of her small intestine is the only area left unexamined.
If I understand the information that I got second-hand from one of the nurses, the plan is to use a miniature video recorder the size of medicine capsule. Ginger swallows the self-contained recorder and waits several days for it to traverse her system. The video footage is downloaded from the capsule and examined to see if the problem area can be identified.
Ginger would then undergo traditional surgery to make any needed repairs.
I think.
The subject was not really an area the nurse was familiar with. And I assume a lot would depend on what they actually find in the examination.
In the meantime, Ginger gets no food but jello and clear liquids. And she fights with the nurses over her insulin dosages. Both of which are guaranteed to boost her crankiness quotient to record heights.
Hospitals love to starve patients on the rationale that they could be going into surgery at any moment; all the while piling on delay after delay that pushes that surgery back for days or weeks. A surgeon just wants to keep you alive, he doesn't give a damn about keeping you comfortable--that's the anesthesiologist's job.
I worry that Ginger was taken out of Intensive Care because she complained too much rather than because there was a medically sound indication that her condition was improving. If you are well enough to piss off your doctor, you can't be that sick right?
In any case we won't be seeing any progress until Monday when the doctors return. The video pill examination would take the average person 3 days to get any results to examine. In Gingers case that probably means at least another week in the hospital.