Extending the stay

Her docs are concerned about the ankle joint and the possibility that an infection has gotten in there. They have decided to stop the IV antibiotics, and keep her in the hospital for several more days, to see if something develops. — at Swedish Hospital.

Snow begins

The snow started yesterday morning. Not that much. But enough to mess up the drive to the hospital and home last night. And very slippery this morning. It was disappointing that her Friday morning caregiver didn't get the word Kristan was in the hospital, and showed up this morning. I fed her a cup of hot coffee for her trouble, before sending her home.

Bright eyed

K was sleepy when I got here, but bright eyed as I'm leaving. Doc said there was no sign of MRSA in the blood culture. He's starting to talk about possible discharge on Friday after dialysis. -- at Swedish Hospital

Air Aide

I was talking to someone recently, who swears by Air Aide for better breathing while skiing, and yes, for when you have a cold, too. One-stop shopping for better lung capacity. Has anyone else heard anything about this supposed wonder-supplement?

Even better

A little better each day. She says her leg doesn't hurt as much as yesterday. One piece of especially encouraging news: her doctor said that amputation is not likely — at Swedish Hospital.

She also said she had a successful Fistulagraphy, which is also very nice to know. A troublesome fistula could have been part of the reason the dialysis tech had to throw away a bunch of her blood on Friday.

Slippery roads and bad traffic

I'm having dinner at Elephant Bar while waiting for the miserable traffic out there to clear up, on this snowy icy evening. I can't imagine dealing with this stop-and-stop traffic, to go visit K in hospital.

The Google Maps Traffic looked horrendously bad, red-and-black everywhere, so I tried a new approach to getting here from work: driving only on side streets, and through neighborhoods, crossing the major thoroughfares only at traffic signals. This technique turned out to be wildly successful, avoiding a whole lot of traffic jams. I'll have to remember that for the future.

Now I'm trying out the MyCharge battery backup gadget that I picked up for $29 at Walgreens over Christmas. Seems to be working great: my phone battery's gone from 29% to 70% in the time it took to order and wolf down my dinner!

Toasty dog in car

With K in hospital, and nobody coming to the house on this snowy 15° day, there is one toasty warm little dog, sleeping in her nice warm nest of blankets, in the back seat of my car. I came out to check on her, and feed her some snacks at lunchtime, and she barely woke up to say hi, roll over for a tummy rub, and hurry over to the snow covered grass for a quick break.

Update: I got busy/distracted at work, and didn't go back out to check on her, until 5pm. She had managed to get out from under her two layers of blankets, and was curled up on top of them. She was ever so appreciative, to have me tuck her back in, before I fired up the car to head to the hospital and then home.

Stopped the Heparin

Kristan's leg seems to still be doing better. They appear to have her blood glucose level under control -- probably because she's not eating much. Her fistula has been oozing a lot, so they've stopped the Heparin blood thinner. I just bugged the tech to get her blood soaked gown changed, and that's happening now. Small successes. Hmm. The snow is hitting five hours early. — at Swedish Hospital.

Three Musketeers

Our neighbor joined the Dauntless Duo, for our Sunday "breakfast at Racines, walk at City Park" routine. It was a beautiful, if quite windy, day at City Park. We almost completely circumnavigated the park, passing by the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, the Denver Zoo, and the St Ignatius Loyola Catholic Church (nice architecture!), along the way. Mandy was particularly interested in all the smells today, stopping every few feet. Probably the wind stirred things up for her.

Moved to 4810

They moved Kristan to Rm 4810 in the Progressive Care Unit (PCU) today. Her leg is much less red and warm, an encouraging sign that the intravenous antibiotics are working. She is much more alert than previously, back to her usual "presents well" self. They just took a swab sample, looking for MRSA to show up (hoping it doesn't), when they grow a culture. They will do a bone scan on Monday, looking for (and hoping to not find) osteomyelitis. — at Swedish Hospital.

Trying to save her blood??

Words you don't want to hear in the dialysis department: "I'm trying to save some of her blood" — at Swedish Hospital.

Her dialysis machine started beeping and announcing an air contamination alert, and shut itself down. The technician ran to the other patient whose machine was also alerting. By the time she got back to Kristan, the blood in her machine had begun to coagulate and was unusable. So the tech threw away all that existing setup, and the blood in it, and started over with all new tubes and filter. She claimed Kristan only lost 1 pint of blood.

The coagulation is amazingly timely in an ironic way, because the reason Kristan is in the hospital, is because she has a blood clot. And a serious infection.

But I'm so shutdown from shock, stress, lack of sleep, that's it's all just rolling off my back. Apparently.

Fred's gone

So sad that our friend and neighbor Fred Gamble passed away on Monday. His funeral was today, at St Mary's Catholic Church. Ken and I went to the service. I had been staying away the past few weeks, because I had a sense that they had a full house with family and caregivers, and I didn't want to get in the way. So it was really helpful for me, to finally get to check in with Marian, and their kids, and some of the grandkids.

Kristan at Swedish Hospital

Kristan was admitted to Swedish Hospital Room 4117 this afternoon, for intravenous antibiotics and a blood thinner. She had been taking oral antibiotics and administering a blood thinner at home, for an apparent leg infection, and a blood clot. Three doctors conferred, and all agreed they wanted to get more aggressive with the treatment. Caregiver Lorene helped her check in, after her HyperBaric Oxygen (HBO) appointment, while I was supporting the TDRS-L launch. 

She was lethargic and not very (or appropriately) responsive, when I visited this evening. This is a common symptom, when she has an infection. Her leg has been bothering her, even though she has so much neuropathy that she generally doesn't feel much below her calf.

Update: Friday night in dialysis at the hospital, she was much more alert. I was so very encouraged. Then the lost blood incident occurred.

Launching TDRS-L

We're planning on launching AV043, an Atlas V rocket, carrying TDRS-L, a NASA telemetry data relay satellite, on Thursday evening. I'm not looking forward to the morning commute, with several inches of snow accumulation forecast for tonight and the morning. See the full story at SpaceFlightNow.com and follow the countdown at their Mission Status Center. Sometimes they carry live video of a launch.

MLK Day Quote

Happy Martin Luthor King Day. An email from our CEO today quoted from the book "Strength of Love" -- Dr. King wrote, "Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think." Amen. Let's all keep trying to arrive at the good answers that come from solid thinking.

Go Broncos

At Racines this morning, we were sitting across from two enthusiastic and hopeful fans, one wearing a Denver Broncos shirt, and the other with a San Francisco 49ers jacket. Living in the Denver area makes me an automatic Broncos fan. But, having grown up in the Bay Area, I still have a place in my heart for the 49ers. I had to wonder what the odds were, of both of them winning their respective playoff games, and meeting at the Super Bowl.

4pm Update: Wow. So the Broncos are heading to New Jersey for the Super Bowl in two weeks. Way to go, guys!

8pm Update: Sorry, SF, better luck next year!

Ankle looked better

K says they told her at Wound Care recently, that her ankle looked a little better. This is the first time in a long while, that anyone has said that.

Take insulin!

Her Endocrinology Doc says she needs to take insulin when she eats. Duh.

On a more serious note (taking him more seriously, I mean), he also emphasized that all the loosely specified high blood glucose limits ("keep it above 200 before you dive") that the Docs at the HBO are telling K are OK, are really just plain too high, and for the Doc's convenience only. The real goal should be as it has been, for the past many decades -- keep BG between 70 and 160. — at Endocrinology Associates

Aspen airport jet crash

A private jet crashed at Aspen airport shortly after noon today. I have a greater than usual interest in this airport, because it's relatively close, has a challenging instrument approach, lots of famous people passing through, and we flew ourselves there one summer, to meet our friends Kay and Tom for lunch.

The News says it was N115WF, a Bombardier Challenger 600, flying up from Tucson, and before that, from Toluca, Mexico. It exploded into flames sometime shortly after crossing the runway threshold, and came to reset upside down in flames. There were just three people aboard, all pilots, one of whom was killed immediately, and the other two were seriously injured. From the flight track on FlightAware.com, it appears that they made one large circle around the airport, getting ready for (or not being able to intercept?) the Localizer approach to Runway 15, missed the first approach (they reported a 33 knot tailwind), and returned to attempt a second approach, which ended in the crash on the runway.

There are all kinds of possibilities. Did they land long because of the tailwind, and lose control trying to get stopped? Did they get off the runway, dig into the deep snow, and flip? Did they encounter wind shear, and land too hard? Did they over-control the aircraft on landing, and get into pilot-induced oscillations? Did they attempt a go-around? The NTSB is investigating.

An interesting twist to this story, is that some famous personalities were at the airport, and posting on Twitter about the crash.

Update 1/22/2014: The TV news and the Aspen Journalism website showed recently released video coverage from fixed position infrared airport cameras, that seem to show the jet touching down amid a shower of sparks, then rapidly pitching up (a bounce? ), and leaping many (30?) feet back up into the air, at far too low an airspeed, then rapidly pitching down, and hitting very hard at a steep nose down angle, and bursting into flames, as the wing tank ruptures and the fuel catches fire. Damn. I wonder what happened, just before, or during, that first touchdown?

Fighting a new cold

It's 10° and snowing lightly. All my hard-won shoveling results are covered up by a light layer. Last night, my cold was the worst it's been in the last six weeks. Stuffy sinuses and runny nose all night long. Still, I'm hankering for a hot breakfast, so I think I'm going out anyway, and maybe taking a side trip, to pick up some cold meds at Walgreens.