Wednesday, November 5th

Cindy at Crater Lake

Hello Everyone,

I had to hang around the house today so the tradesmen could put the finishing touches on Cindy's new kitchen.  Hopefully, it will pretty much be done by tomorrow and I won't have that distraction to keep me from getting over to the hospital.  Her parents were with her all day until I could get there and told me she had a pretty bad day.  She was nauseated, didn't eat much and slept almost all day.  The headaches are still keeping her pretty miserable, too.  One high-point is that a speech therapist came by for the first time today and will continue to do so every day now to work on jogging her memory.  She speaks fine, so that sort of therapy won't be necessary.  

Shortly after I arrived at 4:00, they moved her to a new room in the ICU and Dr. Gore (the neurosurgeon) came by.  He was a little concerned that she wasn't very responsive and concluded that the vasospasms might be beginning.  He had the nurse put her back on blood pressure medication to run her blood pressure up. By the time I left, it was 156/88 and they were shooting for 160, at least.  The idea is that the pressure in her vascular system will keep the vessels from closing up as they try to constrict.  They also put her back on a little oxygen since her blood concentrations were falling off a bit.   When the nurse asked what she wanted to order for dinner, she said she wasn't hungry.   By the time Colleen came by at about 7:00, she was much more awake and talkative, so I guess the plan of action was working.  Then Cindy ate some fried rice that Colleen had made and brought from home, so evidently what they did helped her appetite, too.

Colleen thought she seemed more lucid tonight than she has been previously, and I had to agree.  She seems to be getting some sense of what has happened although she's still pretty disconnected from it all.  Sometimes she thinks she's still in Oklahoma and at other times she knows she's in Portland.  Last night she even remembered what brand of appliances she picked out for her kitchen, whereas before she couldn't even remember our house, much less the kitchen or anything about it.  There's just no consistency to it yet.  Hopefully, tomorrow will be a better day for her.  I'll be late again because of more work on the kitchen.

Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers so the spasms are minimal and she continues on the path to a speedy and complete recovery.