November 30, 2023

There’s a video creator that Adam and I enjoy watching called Dude Dad. One of his jokes is about how he does projects around the house, where he starts a new project before the last one was completely finished. He created a shirt for style of work and called it “A Couple More Days Construction – We’re Always Almost Done” because he “just needs a couple more days.” Well, that’s been our running joke with David so far with everything that has gone on, he just needs a couple more days. This time, he needs a couple more days before he can come home. 

David did gain weight again today, which is excellent. What’s keeping him here now is his echo results. There was change since his last echo in the pressures on each side of his atrial stent which is the stent that is holding open a connection between his left and right atriums in his heart. They said last week the pressure difference was 4-6, this week it is 8-10. Last week they told us that a pressure gradient of 10 is when they get concerned and need to take action. Since we are approaching that, the doctors have decided change a couple of his medications and see how his body responds as a result – basically increasing his captopril for blood pressure and lasix for fluid retention. 

David also had a couple x-rays this morning that they were unable to do from his bed, so he got escorted down to x-ray. I got to accompany him and held his hands/arms out of the way but within his restrictions while they got those pictures. These x-rays showed some extra fluid in his lungs that looked to be an increase from his last x-ray. 

I think I have also mentioned that his oxygen saturations are running high for him. We inquired today what that meant because I couldn’t remember whether it was too much blood being sent to his body or to his lungs. It is more blood is being sent to his lungs than his body. This could also contribute to his lungs having more fluid. The lasix increase will hopefully help with those fluid levels. 

If these medication adjustments are unable to control or lower those pressure differences seen on his echo, there is a possibility that the pressure difference is due to the stent becoming more narrow over time. In that case, David will have to undergo another catheterization procedure where they can use a balloon to enlarge it again. Toward the end of the day today, they took David down for an ultrasound to check his arteries and veins in his legs to see if either might be a good candidate for an entry point for another cath. Reading the results posted online, it looks like he still has clots obstructing his right leg from his last cath, but his left is good. We’ll find out more about what was actually found tomorrow from his team, but for now he will stay in the hospital for a couple more days with a tentative discharge date of Saturday. 

Otherwise, today David met with OT. He was not feeling it – although she came in right after he peacefully finished a bottle and was mostly asleep and I had the nerve to give him a little bit of his multivitamin. After that he was very upset with everyone. We tried a quarter dose of the multivitamin again this morning like we did yesterday, but today our sweeties syringe was gone so I skipped the sweeties, and of course David threw up. We brought up his aversion to his vitamin with speech, and she brought back a pacifier that we can put a syringe into and see if we can try to get him to take it that way. We remembered about Bingo again today, and once again, David was a Bingo winner! He “picked out” a toy that can suction to a surface and lights up when spun.