Questions; No Answers

I am seriously bleary eyed from stress and sleep deprivation and I’m not the one in the hospital. After 21 grueling days in the CICU and then the cardiac unit it looks like my sister is facing some tough decisions.

Number One:

Sib 2 had a heart MRI and a heart cath on July 16th. There was evidence of scarring on the front wall of the heart which indicates a heart attack (different than sudden cardiac death, which we know occurred on July 8th) at some point. No one can tell us when or whether it is related to the thyroid or something else entirely. .

Yesterday they did 2 heart CTs to get a definitive answer as to location and extent of the scarring. It is the opinion of the cardiac team to put in an ICD (pacemaker). My sister is 46. Holy shit.

Number Two:

Her Endocrinologist has not been in favor of removing her thyroid surgically. It will take 8 to 12 weeks to determine if her course of radioactive iodine (June 4th) has had an effect. The surgery is risky because her sever hypothyroidism has made her thyroid gland very vascular. In the surgery the manipulation of the glad to remove it could flood her system with thyroid hormones and send her into cardiac arrest. Nevertheless, they now feel they may not have another option. Holy shit.

My overriding concern remains that the trauma she has been though emotionally and physically make her a poor surgical candidate. Which surgery do they do first? Does one affect the other? Questions; no answers.

CICU

Quick update. My sister is still in the CICU. She is extubated and so is awake and talking for which we are very grateful.

Unfortunately she is still experiencing periods of AFib and her thyroid levels are not trending down as quickly as they would like.

Her health is still fragile and we are taking things one day at a time.

Thank you all for you kind words of encouragement.

Overheard

Outside Cardiac ICU room number five

To the endocrinologist and cardiologist

Fannie: "There is something you need to know about my sister's medical history that isn't in her charts because there isn't a space for it. My sister's ex-husband is an abusive, alcoholic, living in a Salvation Army shelter, piece of shit. That woman in room five has three children and she is all they have. Her son is twelve years old and he doesn't want Aunt Fannie and Uncle Saint; he wants his mother. You? Need to fix.my.sister."

Please God, She's Only Forty Six

Thyroid Storm

Intra-Aortic Balloon Pump

Swan Ganz Catheter

Ventilator

Pneumonia?

Power of Attorney

Medical Directives

Health Care Proxy

Yes. AGAIN.

My sister had a heart attack last night. I'm sitting with her in the cardiac ICU. She is sedated, on a ventilator and undergoing a process called Therapeutic Hypothermia Protocol. Her current body temperature is down to 91 degrees while they try to assess any heart or neuro damage from the cardiac arrest while giving her body a chance to heal.

If you want the back story it starts here, and then goes here, and then here.

She had a radioactive/iodine ablation for her thyroid three weeks ago, but her T3 is still raging. The concern now is that this generally results in A-Fib, not full on cardiac arrest.

I've called every priest I know and I may pull in a rabbi or mullah if I can find one. Please pray.

Fourth of July Re-Cap

Rain was in the forecast:



So we squished as much as we could under a canopy.



We took a chance and set the bar up on the deck.



But I DID make sure there was plenty of seating in doors !



We had a preponderance of young ladies ready to blow stuff up early in the evening.



They had a special project:



After watching many barbies being blown up by brothers/boys over the years,



they decided to try Army Men.



Laid out on a roll of 250 firecrackers.



The Army Men did NOT stand a chance!



Fortunately it did not start raining until just after dusk.



The rain did NOT deter the young people heading off to watch the city fireworks display in make-shift ponchos.



Hope you had a great 4th!

Quickie - Updates to Follow

Well, the 4th of July holiday was a bit of a washout, cloudy with intermittent showers. I have some show-and-tell I'm working on. In the meantime - Precious Youngest took pictures of our resident hawk yesterday afternoon!

This was the closest we've ever seen him, perched on top of the telephone pole in the far corner of our yard.




He is magnificent!



And my gardens REMAIN unmolested by furry varmints!