That Ole Softee is a 5 Percenter

Well that old Softee is still in ICU in the hospital. So this is her husband, Dan, giving you an update.

Try as she might, Pam just can't get out of bed these days. Of course that fact that's she's in ICU and on a ventilator (respirator) has a LOT to do with that. She went into the hospital on Thursday to have a massive tumor removed from one of her ovaries and the rest of the baby-making plumbing removed too. Since our "babies" are all in their 30's now with no plans for anymore, that seemed the judicious choice under the conditions. We had been prepared by all the doctors she's seen that this tumor would most likely be malignant. At her "lofty old age of 60", we were told that cancer was about the only reason it would be of that size. So they said "95% chance this is cancer." Well, Pam is a 5%'er. It was benign, not cancer.

That was of course about the best news ever. Unfortunately from there, everything went downhill fast. As part of the surgery, they intubated her to control here respiration while she was under. At a certain point in recovery, they remove the intubation. When they did that, she had a respiratory failure. The oxygenation of her blood was sinking and her Co2 levels in the blood were rising dangerously fast. So they had to re-intubate her. When I was finally allowed to see her at about 8:30 PM that evening (her surgery was from 7:30-11:00 AM), she was awake, all tubed up and in a lot of pain. They were at the point where they couldn't give her anything more for the pain without causing more respiratory problems, even while on the ventilator. So she was hurting. Sometime around 9 PM, a room finally opened up in ICU and they transferred her up there. I left around 10 PM and she had a pretty tough night.

When I visited yesterday morning she was much more lucid and anxious to get the tubes out of her. She was breathing well on her own, the oxygenation of her blood was good and her Co2 blood levels were sinking quickly. She was mouthing instructions to me and even writing a few quick notes. It looked like she was going to get her wish. However, they couldn't detect any leakage of air around the breathing tube once they had removed the seal from the back of her mouth. That is a necessary precondition to removing the ventilator. The opening to the lungs needs to be bigger than the tube from the ventilator. If it's not, than the vocal chords or upper areas may be swollen and if they remove the tube, it could close shut and she wouldn't be able to breathe.

So, they left her on the ventilator again overnight and we'll see how she's doing this morning. All the other parameters had fallen into place, but they already re-intubated her once and they really don't want to do it a third time. Once they are able to get her off the ventilator, she should be able to move out of ICU and hopefully come home 2-3 days later. When I left her last night, she was resting fairly comfortably and in much better shape than the night before.

Remember when I said she was awake enough to write. One of the first things she wrote was "Blog?". I had promised to post an update on with her blog and hadn't done it yet. So now, I've done it and probably in more detail than what she really wanted. When she's well enough, she'll probably edit the heck out of this, but for the time being....this is where we're at.

Thanks to all for your prayers and well wishes. We are more than happy to be added to the prayers of all who have an inkling to do so. Hopefully that ole' Softee will be back soon.

Dan