Asking the Right Questions
As of tonight's visit, Amacker is still doing very well. In fact, I found out she's been doing better than I realized. Tonight's nurse was one from early last week, a very nice woman, and she was chatty.
As it turns out, Amacker has been pulling breaths on her own since noon yesterday. This is to say that while she is still on a ventilator, it is only breathing when she asks it to. The friendly nurse (again I forgot her name -- shame on me) explained that breathing through a ventilator is a bit like breathing through a straw, so the machine is only helping her as much as it needs to, compensating for the extra drag caused by the several feet of plastic tubing.
Also, Amacker no longer has a drainage tube going into her chest to help clear out around her left lung. It's been gone several days. I just didn't notice, because it was routed under her gown (a place I never look, for obvious reasons).
Anyway, it's not new information, but certainly good news. I just didn't know what questions to ask until it was offered to me by a sweet, possibly lonely, night nurse.
As it turns out, Amacker has been pulling breaths on her own since noon yesterday. This is to say that while she is still on a ventilator, it is only breathing when she asks it to. The friendly nurse (again I forgot her name -- shame on me) explained that breathing through a ventilator is a bit like breathing through a straw, so the machine is only helping her as much as it needs to, compensating for the extra drag caused by the several feet of plastic tubing.
Also, Amacker no longer has a drainage tube going into her chest to help clear out around her left lung. It's been gone several days. I just didn't notice, because it was routed under her gown (a place I never look, for obvious reasons).
Anyway, it's not new information, but certainly good news. I just didn't know what questions to ask until it was offered to me by a sweet, possibly lonely, night nurse.
2 Comments:
Good night nurse!
My father, no longer living, was not much for swearing but he did occasionally shout out idiosyncratic phrases. "Son of a pup!" was one and "Good night nurse!" was another. As I read your post I heard his voice, with a smile in it this time, yelling "Good night nurse!"
Thank you SO MUCH for this blog. It helps very much to to learn about the amazing progress of our amazing and dear Amacker.
Sounds like that left lung is healing well! That's great!
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