Details (Mon 14 Jun 3pm)

I brought my laptop with me when I came back to Sky Lakes Med Center, and I am using the hospital's WiFi network right now, with VPN into Microsoft for security. Cool! So here's the details of the day.

We left Rocky Point this morning at 6:15am and got to the Ambulatory Surgery Center at about 6:50am. We got mom checked in and the nurse began checking her vital signs: weight 108, BP 110/50, and the nurse conspicuously didn't tell us mom's pulse. They gave her a sedative and an antibiotic. Finally at 8:50am the surgical team came and took her away, and then the RN turned to us and told us that her pulse had been around 30, with long pauses of no beats! The nurse hadn't wanted to mention that with a retired surgical RN (i.e., MOM) in the room!

Bill and I went upstairs to the 3rd floor waiting room. Around 11am, Dr. Kubac came up to talk to us. He said that the surgery was "a little more challenging" than he had expected. The upper lobes of her heart (the atria) are greatly enlarged, about twice as large as normal. The lower lobes (the ventricles) are normal size, but due to some interaction with her lungs that I didn't follow, there is very high blood pressure between the ventricles and the atria. Part of this surgery involved Kubac threading a wire through the atrium and down into the ventricle, but because of the high pressure it was evidently like swimming against the current, and the blood kept pushing the wire back up. He eventually got the wire where it was supposed to be, and he said that the surgery was completely successful. He set the pacemaker at 70 beats per minute, and he said he wanted to give it a while and see how mom feels at that rate.

Kubac said that her pulse has been "all over the place." Mom has been talking about how her pulse has been racing ever since she went off the Toprol, and then this morning it was 30 beats per minute and skipping beats. So now things should really stabilize. He said he would be starting her on the Toprol again to keep her pulse from getting too high, and the pacemaker will keep it from dropping below 70.

When my pal Thea and I were at Rocky Point a month or so ago, Thea took some gorgeous portraits of mom's dog Jana. Thea framed a couple of them and sent them down with me. I didn't show either of them to mom, but I brought one of them to the hospital with us this morning. Mom was asleep when Bill and I got to her room after our talk with Kubac, and I moved her table over to her bed, and set up the photo of Jana so it would be the first thing she would see when she woke up. Unfortunately I wasn't there when she woke up, because I took that opportunity to go back out to Rocky Point to let Jana and Fritz out for a canine bathroom break.

When I was driving back to town, Bill called to let me know that they were moving mom up to the third floor, and that she was wide awake and had already had lunch, including a brownie! When I got to her room, there were two very nice nurses swarming over her. One of them offered to order her a milkshake, and she asked for chocolate. When the nurses left, mom told me how amazed she was when she came out of her groggy post-surgical state to see a portrait of Jana on her table! She loved it. (Thank you, Thea!!)

A while later, the nurse came back to tell her that the kitchen wouldn't let her have a chocolate milkshake because chocolate has caffeine in it (not true...it's theobromine!). So...they gave her a brownie for lunch, but no chocolate milkshake?? Mom settled for strawberry. The CNA took mom's vitals and her oxygen saturation was at 95%! Wow, I don't think she has had that much oxygen in months. She seemed very clearheaded, and was very interested in hearing a recap of the discussion with Kubac.

A while after that, Debbie (one of mom's honorary daughters) came for a visit, and mom really enjoyed the chat. But eventually she started getting extremely sleepy so Debbie left and mom is now napping. She will stay here overnight, and will probably be released around noon on Tuesday. She has a very nice private room, with an oblique view of Klamath Lake.