Daily Archives: July 1, 2010

Aging, Family, Humanities

I’ll Be Glad When She’s Home.

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Summer                                     Waning Strawberry Moon

Tomorrow hive inspections, then into see Kate.  The original plan was for her to come home on Saturday.  I hope that  holds up.

Having her away, yet close, seems almost more distance than when she was in San Francisco.

We have a lovely summer night, warm but not hot, a clear sky, the drinking gourd poised in its summer position, the bowl headed north and the pointer stars, as they always do, showing the way to Polaris.

I finished my review of my Latin, mechanically locating the verb, the subject and the object in each of the sententiae antiquae I had translated in the last three chapters.  Greg’s right, this approach makes grabbing ahold of the sentence’s intent much easier.  That’s why he’s the tutor.  I’m going to go ahead and finish chapter 20, which will put me half-way through Wheelock.

Aging, Family, Health

Morning Update on Kate

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Summer                               Waning Strawberry Moon

Back from seeing a much improved Kate.  The pain has receded somewhat and she’s coherent.  Back to her old self with a gimp leg–for right now–and lots of tubes.  As I left, the nurse had begun to set up an IV for 2 units of blood.  She lost a lot, one of the possibilities in this type of surgery.  After she gets that, they’ll probably get her up for her first post-op walk.

She says she already has noticed a positive difference with no pain shooting down to her knee.

I took her one of the yellow Asiatic lilies from our garden.  They look cheery and there are several right outside the patio  door.

Health

Wind, Water, Wound + 2

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Summer                                   Waning Strawberry Moon

Kate’s into her second post-op day, just.  I talked to her on the phone and she has dry mouth and wants lozenges.  She says her fever went up overnight, but has now gone down.  Wind, water, walking, wound, wonder-drugs is a sequence for diagnosing the likely source of an infection post-op.  Wind related fevers usually occur in the first to second day post-op and result from breathing tubes, being on a ventilator and other anesthesiology related sources.  3-5 days post-op come catheter related infections-water and especially in orthopedic patients, walking at 4-6 days.  Walking as soon as possible usually prevents the walking related fevers by eliminating the deep vein thrombosis that is their cause.

The wound itself becomes a concern after 5-7 days.  Again, as with walking, preventive measures, like pre-surgery anti-biotics, care for the surgery site before the operation and, now, an occlusive bandage over the site all help prevent this.

Finally, wonder drugs themselves can cause a fever in the week post-op.

All this means is that Kate’s progressing through the post-op maze of possible problems.  She’s not worried about it and neither am I.

Gotta go.  She needs lozenges.