Friday, March 13, 2009

First thing in Christy's day of Rehab today was Occupational therapy.  They were working on dressing herself again.  Christy still needs help, but is trying hard and progressing a little more each time she gets dressed.  Today, Christy lifted her left leg and put it on the right leg!  Her left leg is the weak leg, too!  Christy was moving her left leg on top of the right to get her shoe on!  Occupational therapy also tried to have Christy brush her teeth on her own.  She already has the spit down from at least a week ago.   Today she was working on actually brushing her teeth independently.

Christy had that triple series x-ray today that we talked about in a previous blog.  They shoot dye into Christy and do a series of shots to see what's going on.  This took a little longer than expected, probably because they wanted to get a perfect picture.  

Speech with Melea was next.  Melea did a little word game with Christy.  Melea would name objects mixed with numbers..... Dog, Seven, House, Four, etc.  Christy's task was to put all of the "things" first and follow them by the numbers.  Christy did really well, so they kept on adding amounts of things and numbers.  They got up to about 6-8 words total, and Christy was a superstar at putting the things first and the letters following the things!  Melea even commented "Way to go Christy!  Show all those Doctors wrong."  Apparently, Christy's performance put her ahead of where the Doctors thought she was at.  Christy has been constantly impressing the Doctors and having only success upon success!

Christy and Don were waiting for their PT appointment at 11:00am Denver time.  They were in the computer room and Don was reading Christy the comments on the blog.  The Tech came by and explained that Dr. Ripley didn't like what he saw on the triple series x-ray.  They wanted them to get back to the room for an additional portable chest x-ray.  Once the x-ray was done and read, they found something they didn't like.  Christy has a pneumothorax again.  When Christy was first admitted to Queen's Hospital, they saw that the accident had caused the left lung to collapse.  She had a Chest tube in for several days at Queens until they felt the lung was 

re-explaned. The picture of this scary guy shows a lung with a pneumothorax and the lung re-expanded after the chest tube was placed.  Christy went to Swedish hospital so a surgeon or interventional radiologist could put in a chest tube under CT scan.  They have it hooked to suction to drain any extra air or fluid.   there is a suction connected to the actual Chest Tube that connects to a pleuravac (collection system), that connects to the suction from the wall.  The lungs work on a negative pressure system.  We expand the muscles lungs and the air is kinda "sucked in" by negative pressure.  The pleura surrounds the lungs.  If the integrity of the pleura is compromised (if get one puka in the sac holding the lung), the lung can not expand.  The Chest tube will allow the air to leave as well as some other fluids.  The lung will heal itself, and we simply remove the chest tube in a few days.  Craig nurses were having some issue with the suction, and they took a second x-ray to recheck the placement of the chest tube.  The second x-ray showed the lung almost perfectly re-expanded already.  It's Friday and the weekend is a time to rest, so Christy will have the chest tube all weekend, and probably get it out on Monday.  They think that this just happened recently, because they didn't see the pneumothorax on the CT scan previous.  They had put a pulse oximeter on her finger to check her oxygen status and it was not a problem.  Christy did well during the procedure and rested the rest of the evening.  She didn't have any respiratory distress or symptoms that were scary.  The Doctors weren't terribly worried about it and could have just watched it with daily x-rays of the chest and lungs.  Because Christy has a history of pneumothorax, the doctor decided to place the chest tube for safety sake.  Christy enjoyed a hand, foot, body massage from Don, Alena, and Luis after the procedure.   Christy braved out another task of healing!  We wish her sweet dreams of days relaxing on the beach, playing with her kiddies again! That's what I'm visualizing because it's cold! burr!

Until tomorrow, xoxo, gabby