Hospital Update - 8

The edema is better; the rash is worse.

Maggie's temperature has been easily controled. She needs one or two doses of tylenol or advil per day to whack down fevers that pop up about every 10-12 hours.

I was ready to take her in because of the swelling and puffiness around the incision for the bypass machine. But it just doesn't look infected. It's not hot, not red, not painful. Just very very puffy. We tried taping garlic on her from 5:00-10:00 yesterday evening. I don't know if it had any effect, but the swelling is significantly less than yesterday.

When I was painting on the betadine stripes today [by the way, the chest-tube incisions look much better than yesterday when we removed the bandages] I noticed spots. Lots of spots. Kinda like chicken-pox spots. By noon, they were gobs worse. They're spreading across her body in a chicken-poxy pattern. But she doesn't have the other signs of chicken pox, like high fever or runny nose or any of those things. I wondered if the rash might be something to do with tape and bandages or something else she was in contact with, but it doesn't seem to work out "geographically" on her body. We know of no contact with anyone with chicken-pox. They don't itch, either, but it sounds like they're not supposed to itch until they erupt. Well, if it IS chicken-pox, it is a darn good thing we got her out of the hospital when we did, just on the cusp of her becoming contagious.

Her tummy wasn't doing so well today. That problem started about 48 hours after the last dose of Zofran. Since she didn't feel so hot, she didn't eat in the morning. But by noon, she was throwing up bile. I think it's hunger, and we don't want to start a cycle of being nauseous because of hunger and then exacerbating the problem by not eating. So I opened up Erin's jar of homemade applesauce and made Maggie eat a bite, even though she objected because of nausea. She had tiny little bites every few minutes for the next hour, and is now feeling much much better. Now she's about a 1/3 of the way done with the quart. Her tummy is all spiffy again!

We have an appt with the family doctor on Tuesday morning.
Gary and I are exhausted. Just totally wiped out and in need of naps. We haven't been short of sleep, but boy, do we need naps. My brain is on vacation too. Can't figure out how to do more than one thing at a time. And sometimes it's hard to keep up with ONE thing. (We may be eating carry-out food a lot this week.) Maggie's not the only one needing to veg in front of the boob tube. Now, if only I could get a chance to pick the video instead of her choosing...