Posted by Jack Drum on January 23, 2002 at 17:23:12:
Here is a mail I got from Anne today.
To all who are not up on Courtney's condition. She underwent 12 hours of surgry to reconstruce the lower part of her heart,(due to birth defects), repair some other defects, and the Maze.
She is 20, and this is only one of her heart surgerys she has had, but this was the most serious.Anne's mail
Courtney is doing a little better. Her fever is not as high as it has been. Last night at bed she was in terrible pain. They had switched her pain med from Codiene to Toradol but it can only be given every 6 hours. At five hours she was in a lot of pain. They are very good about pain magement here and so they called the in-house resident and he ordered Codiene along with Toradol and an Ativan to help her rest. The Codeine can be given every 4 hours and the Toradol every 6 hours. This seems to be helping to control her pain.
The surgeon and cardiologist came in and agreed that with the process of exclusion to anything else and that with her symptoms they are giving her the diagnosis of Plueritis which is an inflammation of the lung lining. With Courtney's last surgery in 1994 she had pericarditis which is inflammation of the heart lining. They say that if you have had one or the other you are more prone to it. They also feel that the chest tube could have temporarily damaged a nerve. The liver doc feels that it could also be irritated by the fact that her liver is so enlarged that and is pushing on her gallbladder and diaphragm. If her pain doesn't get any better they can do an intercostal block which involves and injection to numb the nerve. Her symptoms are severe pain on the right middle abdomen that radiates to the back and shoulder and especailly hurts when she breaths in. They noramlly treat it with steroids but Dr. Warnes the card, says that Fontan patients can't take steroids and Courtney can't because of her bleedin
g disorders. The other way to treat it is to give aspirin 3 to 4 times a day.I reminded them that in 1994 on post-op day 17 Courtney developed pericarditis and they treated her with low dose aspirin along with Coumadin and that they sent us home on post-op day 19 and on post-op day 21 she bled in her brain. Post-op day 21 will be tommorrow this time. They tell us that it will be safe and that they will reduce the Coumadin and keep a close eye on things. I told them that last time in 1994 the card and hematologist told us it would be safe as well and it wasn't. I am VERY nervous about starting aspirin therapy. It would require aspirin 3 to 4 times a day. Last night they reduced her Coumadin in order to get her INR down enough to start aspirin.
They say she needs to get the inflammation down so that she can get mobile again and get out of bed. The nurse heard fluid in her right lung last night while she was sleeping and so she went down for a chest xray at 8:00am this morning. I am still waiting to here the results. I called her card in Chicago who was with us in 1994 during her brain bleeds and heart surgery. She said they are right that they need to treat it so that she doesn't get complications of pnemonia or clots. I am still very nervous and have insisted that we talk to hemtology before they give any aspirin. I hope and pray they know what they are doing.
Thanks for the continued thoughts, cards, and prayers. I am sure that things will get better here before too much longer.
Take care,
Anne
- Re: Update on Courtney Kidd. Ed Wehan 11:50:42 1/24/2002 (0)