Monday, January 19, 2009

Aloha everyone! The big news today is that Chrsity moved out of the ICU to the 9th floor at Queens. She's on a "respiratory" unit where most of the patients have tracheostomies like Christy.  This means that they are experienced in taking care of trachs and with the care of them.  The nurses are comfortable suctioning and cleaning and changing the inner cannula.  The inner cannula of a Trach needs to be changed daily (they used to have ones that need to be cleaned, made of metal. ) The new inner cannulas are made of disposable plastic.  The picture to the right shows the parts of the actual tracheostomy tube.  The tracheostomy tube is placed in the stoma (stoma is the actual name of the hole in the windpipe) & has three parts: outer cannula, inner cannula and obturator.  The outer cannula is the outer tube that holds the tracheostomy open. (It's the big one one the bottom of the picture)  A neck plate extends from the sides of the outer tube and has holes to attach cloth ties or velcro strap around the neck. It also has a "cuff" the air filled balloon-like thing on the inside of the windpipe.  This balloon holds the cannula in place and attempts to prevent secretions from going down into the lungs.  The inner cannula (middle) fits inside the outer cannula.  It has a lock to keep it from being coughed out.  The obturator (top object in picture) is a plastic guide with a smooth rounded tip.  You will use the obturator if the trach  accidentally comes out and needs to be put back in.  The obturator does not stay in the tracheostomy.  Christy still has 40% oxygen delivered to her like in the ICU by the ventilator. You and I breathe about 21% oxygen in the atmosphere, so it's not that much more.  Chris' trach collar/mask (that we talked about last blog) delivers the warmed humidified oxygen.  Her tube delivering this humidified warm oxygen even has a little thermometer that shows at what degree of warmth the oxygen is... cool huh?  Christy is doing just fine breathing on her own and has a good oxygen saturation.  We talked about oxygen saturation in a previous blog. We want her to be 95-100% and she's there.  She has the E.T. lighted sticker on her finger to measure it, just like the ICU.  She has a tiny monitor that displays the just the oxygen saturation & her heart rate.  The heart rate is measured through the little pulse reading in the finger.  The heart rate measurement isn't as reliable as the EKG stickers she wore in the ICU because its read by the finger probe & not by reading the electricity of the heart.  The heart rate number, as well as the oxygen saturation can be skewed by her moving her finger around or loss of blood circulation to the hand for the short time that the blood pressure cuff is measured on the same arm.  Christy never had an irregular rhythm or any other rhythm than normal sinus rhythm.... therefore it's unnecessary to continue monitoring the EKG.  Her blood pressure has been stable for about a week, so she just has it measured intermittently now.  Christy is more medically stable and we're just giving her more time to awake from her slumber.  We play her favorite music, continue to encourage her, and let her rest and heal.  Patience is a virtue!

So, on a different note, people have been contacting me and the family about helping out financially with Christy's medical bills.  Billy (a very close friend of the twins & knew Chrsity well) works at Bank of Hawaii.  He was able to start a fund called the "iheartchristy fund" with the bank.  This means that anyone can go to any Bank of Hawaii throughout the state and ask to donate money to the "iheartchristy fund" and they could help you out!  

Also, I wanted to mention that Pipeline offered to donate $3.00 of each admission collected from the Classic Rock concert this weekend to the iheartchristy fund if the person purchasing mentions Christy's name!  So if you are going to that concert this weekend or you know anyone going, please mention Christy's name and the iheartchristy fund!  We thought about sending people down to Pipeline this weekend to explain Christy's story to the people in line & ask them to mention Christy's name as they went in. hee hee! 

Lastly, Kaeo and I are leaving town for a week: Tuesday to Tuesday.  We come back on January 27th.  We are going to be with Alan in Colorado.  At this time, Alan could use some family love.  No worries, I will continue to blog.  I will do the best i can- long distance.  Kaeo and I will both be in touch with Don and Mom and family as well as the nurses taking care of Christy.  I got the direct line to the nurses station and let them know I'd be calling daily... xo, gabby