Recovery Day 6

We made it in today early enough to see the doctors, which was a relief since we haven't had much contact the last few days. The plan for today is to get Jennie off of the Heparin IV and her Insulin IV and try to switch her to a subcutaneous shot daily. It will be somewhat of an experiment the first few days trying to get the levels right, but it has to happen at some point.

They also said they plan on raising her pain med a little since she is doing more movement and her pain has increased as a result. Our only concern with that is she is having a difficult time staying wake for any period of time that the increased meds will only make her grogginess worse.

She is supposed to be getting up at least 3 times a day, and they will be removing her catheter to try and motivate her more. They also mentioned that the X-ray showed nothing besides some fluid in her left abdominal cavity where they removed the pancreas from, which is normal.

It seems that things are still pretty well on course, although we feel like her progress is somewhat slower than some talking to the doctors and nurses who see these transplants regularly. We would like for her recovery to be very quick, but any progress is still progress and so far we haven't had any big setbacks, which is a blessing.

Recovery Day 5

Today Jennie again appears to be doing better. The swelling is down more than it has been in months, although she is still running a slight fever and the blood work indicates she still has an infection somewhere. The doctors that came in before we arrived said that they weren't too concerned about the infection and would be watching it for the next few days until they were able to get the cultures back to determine exactly where it is.

The only other real issue is that they have decreased her pain medicine quite a bit, which is causing her to hurt more than she has the last few days but they feel she isn't coming down quickly enough on her own.

Other than that there isn't much to report today, but hopefully Dr. Sutherland will be around lunchtime to give us some more information and to answer a few questions we have.

I thought I would post this drawing that we had done last Thursday at the Mall of America, we both thought it was very good.

Address to send Cards

Sorry, I just realized that I never posted the address you can send cards to for Jennie.

Fairview Medical Center
420 Delaware Street SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Floor 6B - Room 239

IMPORTANT - Due to the floor we are on, they won't accept flowers real or silk, and we ask only for cards due to the limited space.

Thanks, I know Jennie would really appreciate hearing from everyone!

Recovery Day 4

Again today Jennie seems to be doing well. Unfortunatley we got here after the doctors had already come by this morning, for some reason they seem to keep coming earlier and earlier everyday. Jennie says her pain is about the same as yesterday but there is a noticible reduction in her grogyness, so we can tell her medication has been lowered significantly.

On the agenda today is to try and get Jennie to walk a little, maybe even out into the hall. I don't know if this is a bit much, yesterday just getting to the chair really exahausted her.

The only other issue is that Jennie still has some swelling, although it appears to be mostly in her legs and feet. They don't want to give any more lasix because her fluid output has been fairly high, but getting up and moving some more should help it.

Her blood sugar levels remain stable, which means that they have finally stopped checking it every hour (her poor fingers were getting butchered). The nurse is going to try and get the doctors to return, so hopefully we will know more later.

Recovery Day 3

I apologize for not getting this update posted earlier, but things are going pretty well again today.

This morning we got to see Dr. Sutherland who thought things were progressing well. Jennie began her Physical Therapy officially this morning, although we did get her to get out of bed and stand for a few minutes last night. Today she has moved to a recliner chair , and is supposed to do that 2 times a day for at least 30 minutes. Although she is still very sore when moving, she is handling it very well and is eager to do what is needed.

Today they also reduced her pain medicine some, as it was making her very sleepy and had lowered her breathing to where they had to put a full oxygen mask on last night to ensure she was getting enough oxygen. This should be helped both by the lower pain meds and also as she begins to move more and regains strength.

They started her on a antibiotic because her white blood cell levels are elevated, meaning she probably has an infection, although we don't yet know exactly what kind.

Another problem we have been having is that Jennie has been retaining a lot of fluid, which makes her swell, increasing her pain and restricting her mobility. Today Dr. Sutherland issued another round of lasix to help get rid of the excess fluid, and said he would like to get another round issued sooner if we start to notice it again.

The last issue we had to discuss we Dr. Sutherland was that Jennie's blood count dropped from a steady 9.2 most of the day yesterday to 8.7 this morning. He feels that this is most likely also due to the swelling and feels as her fluid retention goes down we should see this level out as well.

I am not sure that I have mentioned it yet, but we likely won't know much about how well the islet cells took for several days. Right now she is on insulin to give the islet cells time to rest and to get at home in her liver. When they feel her body has recovered enough to try clear liquids and eventually a limited diet, they will take her off the insulin IV and try to switch to oral medicine. This is when we will first be able to tell how the transplant of the cells took, and it will likely take some time to get the levels adjusted properly.

Jennie is very sleepy today, but I think her pain is somewhat lower except when we move her. Her spirits have also been very high, in fact we had her singing along with Finding Nemo this morning. I know that this positive attitude has helped her recovery immensely, and hopefully with prayer she can keep it up.

Recovery Day 2, mid-day

So we got the results from Jennie's noon blood work back, and her Hemoglobin levels have finally stopped dropping, meaning that the internal bleeding appears to have stopped! Her platelet count went up some too, meaning that her liver is functioning properly, which is also great news.

They did have to come in and assess her Central line IV because it appeared that it might not be delivering the medicine and fluids she needed, but they don't think that there is a problem right now and will be monitoring it closely the rest of the day.

We managed to get the sheets changed and to get Jennie moving a little, although she was hurting a lot the entire time. She did say afterwards that she was glad to be on some fresh linens and then proceeded to fall straight to sleep exahusted. Other than having to come and check her blood sugar every hour, she has been sleeping most of the morning and afternoon and appears to be in a little less pain than she was yesterday.

Today has been a great day so far with many of our concerns and prayers having been answered. Jennie is certainly going to have many rough days over the next few weeks, but it is nice to see some progress being made.

Recovery Day 2 update

So the Doctors just came in and said that they are pleased with the bloodwork and that they don't anticipate needing to go to surgery, although they are still going to monitor it closely. They said that they would rather have a small amount of blood loss than to risk taking her off of the heparin and having her liver not get the blood it needs to recover properly. From what I understand it is somewhat of a catch-22.

Other than that they removed the bandages, and we got to see Jennie's incision for the first time. It is still very sore and bruised, and her abdomen is swollen, but it actually looks much better than we were expecting having talked to other people who had been through this surgery.

There was also talk about trying to get Jennie to move some today and hopefully get her out of the bed at least long enough to change the sheets. They want to get her moving some to keep her from clotting or getting bed sores. They also said that they don't want to increase her pain medicine any because she is having so much difficulty staying awake.

Hopefully we will get her somewhat mobile today and by tonight things will be looking much better. Please keep the prayers coming, they help immensely.