Here is the rest of the story. I sincerely hope you enjoyed the cliffhanger from yesterday …
Chris
called me around 7 a.m. And did she ever
have some news to share. Seems she got
up around 3 a.m. to go to the bathroom, certainly something we all have
experienced from time to time. On her
way she felt a stabbing pain in her leg at the insertion site. She finished the important task at hand and
limped back to the bed. Shortly
thereafter, a nurse arrived to check on her, and Chris described what had happened. A quick check of the site ensued, and the nurse
immediately said, “I need to call the Fellow.”
The insertion site had begun to bleed again, a factor of the blood
thinners in her system.
Apparently
it took a while for him to get there. He
had to deal with a heart attack in process first. But when he did get there, he barked out
orders quickly. He ordered some morphine,
and Chris wondered aloud why. He
replied, “You’ll know in just a second.”
Suddenly she began to feel queasy from the drug, so he said, “Here we
go.” At that point Chris discovered the
purpose of the morphine. Her bed was
lowered to provided leverage, and the muscular Fellow began to push – to hold
pressure to the extreme – on the site. Within
minutes the room was flooded with other medical personnel. The monitors out in the hall were showing
that Chris’ heart rate had dropped to near 30.
The Fellow assured them that he was in the room and closely monitoring
the situation. The low rate was due to
the morphine. For fifteen minutes he
held that pressure, occasionally easing up just a bit to make sure Chris could
still feel her toes. Then they put an
ice pack on it. Later in the morning
they strapped the ice pack to her leg. And
she would have to lie flat on her back again for another six hours. She was also told that they were holding off
on some of her blood pressure medicine to try to get a handle on the heart rate
issue. Add that one to the list. And all the while she was assured that “this
is just one of those little complications they tell you about before
surgeries. And this really is one of the
little ones.” Thank you very much, but
it’s not so little when it’s on your own body.
For
much of the morning the plan for her to come home was certainly in
jeopardy. But then, before I could even
get up there for visiting hours at ten, a Fellow came in and said he would call
the cardiologist to make sure, but everything looked OK to him for her to come
home. And when the attending cardiologist
came by on rounds at 10:30 (I was there by that time), Chris was given
the OK to get up. WooHoo. Thank God for small favors. All she could think about at the time was
that she had to go to the bathroom. I’m
not sure she even heard clearly that the doctor also said there was no reason
she couldn’t be discharged. All that
remained was waiting for the discharge papers.
So
we did get to come home after all. The
fact that the hospital was getting slammed with patients may have had something
to do with the release (No. The vast
majority of cases were NOT Covid), but we were happy to comply and get out
of there.
Now
we go back to making doctor’s appointments and dealing with the low heart rate
and adjusting medications. Oh, and
Christmas. There is that …
1
Thessalonians 5:16-18 says, “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks
in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
Father,
thank you for that Fellow who spent fifteen minutes of his work day making sure
Chris was taken care of in a tenuous situation.
Bless him for that, maybe with an opportunity or two to rest? Amen.
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