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Sunday was a rough night
Jun. 27th, 2011 02:38 pmFriday and Saturday went along as well as could be expected. Not at all pleasant, but "uneventful." Sunday started out in the same vein, but in the evening Richard started having difficulty breathing, his heart rhythm became erratic, and he started having increased pain in various parts of his torso. After a certain amount of night-time drama (at least from our point of view) he was moved back to the ICU.
It seemed really scary to us, but apparently it is still well within the parameters of "normal" for this type of surgery. For reasons I still don't quite understand, 10-15 POUNDS of water-weight fluctuation is common in the days following bypass surgery and that is the most likely cause of all of the symptoms (fluid around the lungs). Since he seemed so unstable (and so miserable) I got a cot brought in and stayed the night. I waited around until the doctors started dropping by in the morning. Both the cardiologist and the surgeon seemed appropriately concerned but not too worried and estimated that he would be out of the ICU again by tomorrow and feeling better. This sets the schedule back a day or two, however. It is now unlikely that he will be home before Friday.
Since he seemed to be stable I headed off to work, which is where I am right now. I'm going to call in a few minutes to see how he's doing and then decide what I'm doing the rest of the day.
It seemed really scary to us, but apparently it is still well within the parameters of "normal" for this type of surgery. For reasons I still don't quite understand, 10-15 POUNDS of water-weight fluctuation is common in the days following bypass surgery and that is the most likely cause of all of the symptoms (fluid around the lungs). Since he seemed so unstable (and so miserable) I got a cot brought in and stayed the night. I waited around until the doctors started dropping by in the morning. Both the cardiologist and the surgeon seemed appropriately concerned but not too worried and estimated that he would be out of the ICU again by tomorrow and feeling better. This sets the schedule back a day or two, however. It is now unlikely that he will be home before Friday.
Since he seemed to be stable I headed off to work, which is where I am right now. I'm going to call in a few minutes to see how he's doing and then decide what I'm doing the rest of the day.
