Bye Bye ICU

After getting hooked up to an IV for some extra magnesium (low magnesium can occur with heart disease), and the 4th round of plasmapherisis, we left the Cardiac ICU after 9 nights and 10 days.

At first it was fun to check out the new digs – we have a better view, there are draws, shelves, and places to put things, and there are doors. An actual door to the room and a door to a bathroom with shower.

After 10 days without washing hair (Zayne refused to do the astronut hair wash), I encourage her to take a shower. The nurse assured her it isn’t an issue to keep her PICC and IV bandages dry, so she was wrapped in protective plastic and kitchen cling wrap. The shower turned into disaster when the water protection didn’t work and her bandages got wet and had to be replaced. Poor Zayne was not happy with the shower results, and asked me after whey the hospital is associated with so much pain. I was trying to distract her, but that doesn’t work well with Zayne (especially, when the nurse is hurting her).

Zayne had a really bad hand shaking episode followed by splitting headache pain. Then I was freaked out when her systolic blood pressure was reading high in the 120s jumped to 137. Zayne started a low dose of Enalapril (to relax blood vessels) since her heart is showing decreased function since stopping the IV Milnerone. Her last systolic blood pressure reading is back down to 98, but she is sleeping with her heart rate at 130 beats per minute. I’m curious to see how her blood pressure is through the night, but I’ll have to find out in the morning.

She will probably need to have a higher does of Enalapril. Tomorrow, Thursday, we don’t have any planned procedures, but the team needs to figure out how to help Zayne’s heart. The doc told me that it will take time, maybe a lot of time. I hate seeing her with high blood pressure and heart rate, but she feels good and is eating.