April 9, 2016
This morning Den had blood in his Foley bag. I informed our nurse and she said they would keep and eye on it and she would also inform the doctor.
Today the doctors filled us in on the battery of tests that Den would need to determine if he was a good candidate for the LVAD surgery. They also informed us that the hospital was participating in a study that could we could participate in if we wanted, it was not mandatory in order to have the surgery. The test would include, but were not limited to…..
- Abdominal, head, neck and leg ultrasounds
- Head and chest CT’s (since he could not have an MRI…Pacemaker=metal= not on your life!)
- Chest xrays
- Swallow study
- lots and lots of blood work
- Psychiatric evaluation
- Social worker evaluation
All of these would be done over the weekend or Monday, since the team would meet Wednesday morning to determine if Den was to have clearance for surgery. The team would be coming in Monday morning to go over what the plan would be if he was cleared. The doctors had to readjust Den’s SWAN several time during the day, the signal was not very good. They did get a better reading, but it was very uncomfortable for Den each time they had to adjust the sensor.
Den was still having a lot of abdominal pain when he took a deep breath. It was determined that is was from the Foley again and they decided to try changing the tube. Shortly after that, Den got more of his diuretic via IV push. He ate very little dinner, just some pudding and grapes.
Physical Therapy was in and the recommendation was made for Den to go to in-patient rehab after surgery. This way he would get intense therapy and it was hoped he would recover his strength faster.
With Den’s swallow study scheduled for Monday morning, we were informed that he would be NPO (no food or drink) after midnight tomorrow.
Den's LVAD 