7.23 - Competitive Swimming

Curious name? It has meaning, believe me.

- Medical: Tough. It was probably the toughest day medically since we've been in this battle.
- Mental: Strong...as always!
- Physical: Tough. She said she's 'all used up' this evening, which you'll see why as you read further.

Obviously these 3 criteria equal a less positive day than yesterday, but I would say it ended up pretty damn well all things considered.

I got a call this morning from Mom to tell me they'd confirmed a bronchoscopy appointment for her (for those curious, here's the Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronchoscopy - looks like 'fun', doesn't it?) That had been an option for a while now with the continued lung / infection issues. Well there was more to it than just the bronchoscopy.

During the night, Mom's blood oxygen sunk so they had to give her a mask. The nurses remarked that she was doing amazingly well to just now need oxygen so we had that going for us. However the complexity is doing a bronchoscopy while a patient has low blood oxygen requires ICU and usually a ventilator post-surgery during recovery. Obviously anytime you introduce those two terms it's another level of risk. And they wouldn't know for sure if it would be done standard or in ICU until just before the scope.

She had communion and recited the 'Our Father' with the hospital priest prior to going down to the operating room too. That was an extremely emotional experience.

I'm extremely relieved to report that she was able to have a standard procedure and avoid ICU + ventilator altogether. We're all very relieved and you may have seen Walt and Rhonda's comments on yesterday's entry stating that. It just goes to show you how everything can quickly change in either direction and it's a matter of focusing on the task immediately in front.

I'm also happy to report that Mom's mental strength during this process was (as usual) amazing. She told several people today that her mantra through the process was / is 'I have the lungs of a competitive swimmer.' Pretty impressive and I'm hoping that she can spare that for my next triathlon. And when she came out, she asked Margaret in her typical tone, 'are you impressed?' Talk about the understatement thus far! We're all amazed, Mom.

Mari says she's physically exhausted, but is still sharp enough (although she doesn't feel like she's as sharp as she is) that she's still correcting the nurses and helping keep them on the same page...still in charge, Captain Cathi.

She's not out of the woods on all of the lung issues, but we're hoping this was the valley. The fever's still around so that can make it difficult to rest. They're still trying to confirm they know everything about where she's been, what the infections could be, etc. They did speculate today that the lung infiltration could be leukemia cells. We'll keep everyone posted.

On days like today, it's great to know everyone's praying and visualizing great things for Mom. We know there are days like this in front of us, but it's good to have one behind us where she got up one more time than she was knocked down.

Thanks everyone.