Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Congestion, Dr. Davis Visit, Electrician Update

Another busy day. Peggy was complaining that she felt like she has "a serious mucus plug or pnuemonia." I called Denise and she had us take Peggy off oxygen and monitor her "sats" for 20 minutes. We took her "pulse-ox" every 5 minutes for a half hour off oxygen and she steadily declined from 100 to 94. We put her back on oxygen. Denise told us to percuss as much as we could - preferably ever hour to try to knock the plug out. Peggy was feeling like she might want to go to the ER, but Denise did NOT recommend that or feel that it was necessary.

Both Cathy and Dr. Davis came by, so they both checked on Peggy. Dr. Davis's visit was a great relief to Peggy. He checked her lungs and said that they sounded fine. He told her that she really didn't need to worry unless we started to see her O2 drop to anything around or below 90. But since she is already scheduled for a chest x-ray on Friday, he said not to worry.

While he was at the house, he also did a full check. He checked her ears and confirmed that the left "stint" propping her eustation tube open had indeed fallen out causing her loss of hearing on that side. Peggy says it has been that way since around Thanksgiving. Dr. Peroff will re-prop it open on Friday. The last time Peggy had this done she said that once it was opened up again it felt like everyone was SHOUTING!

Peggy told Dr. Davis that this week she has felt as if she can't handle the pain she is feeling. She says that the pain is mostly trach related, congestion, and lately "headache pain above the left eye". Dr. Davis felt that the first 2 issues will be handled on Friday. He thinks that the headache pain may be sinus pain. He upped her sudafed to 4x a day for 5 days to see if that will help. Peggy said that the pain has been depressing her this week, but that while she is still feeling pain, she feels better today.

On a positive note, Peggy's eyes were in excellent condition today. They were clear as day and darting around. It was great. Dr. D did an eye exam and said her eyes look good.

Dr. Davis also fixed our internet when he was at the house! Yay! He also moved the router to a higher position (in the back office by the bathroom). Be careful because until I get a longer ethernet cord, it's pulled a little too tight for how long it is, so don't trip on it!

Dr. Davis took the time to show us and show Peggy on his laptop what he sees when he looks at her from her office using the telemed camera. Peggy got a kick out of seeing how it all works. It is so amazing. He can see so much detail and can zoom in and all around. Very cool.

Today the electricians came back to put in the "ground". Then they checked the outlet where we have the battery charger plugged in and they confirmed that we should have no problems now. I can't wait to report back to Respiratory tomorrow.

Since the electricians were working on the fuse boxes, we put Peggy on the generator/battery just to be safe in case the power went out. It was a great test of our back up system. The generator worked great and so did the battery. Hooray.

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