This is Doc Adam Arthur along with Larry practicing proper bedside manner. Adam was at the door in ER when they brought Pat in and was able to get right to her to put in the brain drain that saved her life.
When the disaster bell rings, all the specialists leave their units and go in wait in the ER hallway. Thus, another plus for Pat. If she hadn't been brought in as part of a tornado, she would have been seen by the ER docs first before they sent her up to neurosurgery. But the way it happened, they arranged to have the neurosurgeon right there and be the receiving doctor.
Nurse Bruce is shown here trying out a new 3M stethoscope that we found for him. Bruce was also one of those who saw her immediately when she arrived and helped save her life.
Thursday Evening 11:30 pm
Pat is more or less the same. Her face is slightly more expressive, actually with more frowns and grimaces, all of which the medical staff finds positive. She goes back and forth between the smiles and frowns, like she's dreaming. When it looks like she's getting too agitated, she gets a shot of morphine.
Medically, the doctors think she's stable enough to fly to Denver at any time. The timing is probably more a matter of when beds and aircraft are available. The Labor Day weekend is a barrier too.
The plan as best as we know it now is that Pat will go to Swedish Hospital on Tuesday. When she is ready, then she will go to the adjacent Craig Rehab. I would discourage you from making any plans to visit her next week, and perhaps even for the next couple of weeks. A better way to provide her support is to make audiotapes of messages to her (the next update will have more background on what we've been thinking).
Medically, her only remaining problem outside of the neurological one, is pancreatitis. I gather that the cause of this is a physical reaction to the sudden change in diet -- from lean chicken and fish and lettuce to tube fed bags of white liquid that is high in fat content. Apparently, if she had been eating more fries and burgers this wouldn't be happening. The pancreatitis keeps getting better tho. When it gets too bad, they switch her back to the IV. The impression I get is that she will slowly adjust. It is not an infection of the pancreas, rather swelling that is due to this physical change in diet.
The Channel 13 spot came off real well. It lasted about two minutes and focused on Pat's strong character and on the email and website updates and support. The introduction was along the lines that the debris downtown has been cleaned up, but the effects of the tornado are still being felt. The Huffmans taped it and we'll have to figure out a way to distribute it, I suppose.
Larry described the actual tornado, and they used a quote from me, "I was telling her that she was not alone and there were hundreds of friends and relatives who were cheering her on. That was when we got the first smile, and now we're getting lots of smiles."
As ever, Dan
