May 14th

From Christine: Today was a magnificent afternoon. 

Today was largely an uneventful day. She had some visitors from work, Mom spent the morning with her, Dad arrived around lunch time to spend the rest of the day and overnight with her, and Grandpa stopped by for awhile in the afternoon. They are still planning on discharging her tomorrow! However, because of various logistical issues it could end up being Thursday instead. Grandpa has started bringing some of her things back to the house, as she, Mom, and Tommy will be staying with Grammy Pat and Grandpa John to be close to MGH.

Yesterday I wrote about how they switched some of her pain meds - they switched her short acting pain meds yesterday, and today they switched her long acting. She says they have been working much better for her - instead of her pain being a 7 or 8 its been more like a 4. She also is taking quite a bit less than she was of the morphine I think, which is a good thing. Even though Mom said it looked like her O2 levels were up during the day yesterday, they still dropped quite low last night. She may have to go home with O2 and a probe for night time if they are still low tonight.

Her favorite PCP (the one she sees even when she isn't hospitalized) came by and talked with her and Dad for a long time about what she'll need while at home, how to get it, what she could do to help, etc. She made Christine feel SO much better, and like going home will be smooth and like she'll have or be able to get everything she needs. She will have PT coming daily as well as a visiting nurse, among other things.

We also learned more about why they are taking an MRI of her knee, which actually didn't end up happening last night but did happen tonight. It sounds like steroids can occasionally cause necrosis of the joints, and so they want to check her knee to figure out if its just "normal" inflammation or if there is something more serious happening within the joint itself. It's kind of a scary concept to think that the tissues in her knee could actually be dying, so we really hope that is not what they find!

We will certainly keep you all in the loop about her potential discharge tomorrow and how things go as she transitions to home life.