Blood Sugar Trials...

I am sitting here in Room 233 with mom, and she is dozing. She is pretty tired; for the third day in a row she was awakened in the early hours with extremely low blood sugar. Today they had to change her sheets, clothes etc., as she was soaked through with sweat. Dr. Tucker is changing her insulin regimen again; she will now take her main dosage at night rather than in the morning as she has been. We hope this will help get her sugars under control.

After another increase in creatinine levels yesterday, there was a slight drop today. This is heartening (no pun intended,) because they cannot work on her heart until the kidney has bounced back. We are still tentatively set for Friday.

Yesterday mom had some chest pain and the nurse gave her nitro pills to put under her tongue for a more instant effect. This helped and she went back to no chest pain after that. Today they took her off the oxygen that she has been attached to since she arrived. After about an hour she is still at 98%, so he is keeping her off the oxygen for now. Yay! We are strongly hoping she will not end up having to be on oxygen at home after she recovers.

Amanda (mom watches her little ones) came by recently and brought mom a lovely plant, and the wonderful staff at Swan (where Kirk works) sent a fantastic plant arrangement as well. They cheer the room considerably; you know how sterile these rooms can be. I have checked out a slug of library books for her, and she has her computer and her crocheting. (Bummer: the hospital Internet filters and doesn't allow games like Pogo.com. Mom loves playing cards with Anne via the Internet.... oh well.) Hopefully these items will keep her from going to crazy when she is here alone.

The rest of the family is doing fine; I am splitting my time between home and the hospital and trying to get some of my work done from both places. Luckily I have Internet access in many places, so I can take my work with me. Martin had a bout of the 24 hour stomach flu Sunday night, and spent the entire night vomiting, but he is back to school today. Kirk spent the day yesterday at our church helping with the Thanksgiving Blessing. This is a city-wide project where several churches combine to help provide entire Thanksgiving meals to the needy. At our church from 1 Pm to 9 PM yesterday, 925 families received all the fixings for a Thanksgiving dinner. And that's just our church. Wow. Kirk was wiped out and crashed soon after getting home. I took Katie swimming last night; she just loves being in the water and had been asking for several days. We are making every effort to keep life as normal as possible for her. Yesterday she spoke with Ingrid on the phone, and asked her when she would be retiring. I could hear mom asking her what she meant, and after several repeats, it became clear that by "retiring," Katie meant "when will they release you from the hospital." :-)

Well, I am going to head back to my work email to get some more work done. I will update more when I have news. Please pray that mom's kidney bounces back quickly and that her blood sugars get under control. Thanks....