:lol2: She sounds fine to me! I'm so glad things went well.

Snort!

http://cellar.org/2012/icu0.jpg

Center city at noon, looking east from the west philly hospital parking garage roof.

http://cellar.org/2012/icu1.jpg

57 pulse, 98 blood oxygen, 130/51 blood pressure, 14 I never figured out.

http://cellar.org/2012/icu2.jpg

Mom hates, *hates* bad pictures of herself, so don't tell her I did this. I think it was a physician's assistant who came in and tested her vision because she was having issues with her eyesight. She tested two things: peripheral vision, which is being tested here; and stroke, which was trying each eye out independently to make sure the vision was the same in each.

The machine there at the bottom of the pic is attached to the green cuffs around the calves. It squeezes the calves gently, regularly, like a blood pressure machine, to make sure no blood is pooling there. The red pillow on her lap is given to all heart patients, as a thing to squeeze to maintain a little reverse pressure on the chest when they want to cough, sneeze, or (I suppose) laugh. The orange footy socks are for all patients.

S.I.C.U. stands for Surgical ICU, and all hospital pros say "sick-you" and never "Ess-Eye-See-You". The other ICU here is Medical ICU, and I have yet to hear somebody say "mick-you", although surely they must.

Unlike other hospitals, every sick-you room here is private, and every room has all the supplies needed for patient care. One nurse described it as unique to her ICU experience.

http://cellar.org/2012/icu3.jpg

Every room here, ICU and "regular", has a whiteboard for simple communications. Valentine, a tall, dark African man, was responsible for sticking her fingertips for blood sugar tests. She loved him, and by the end of her sick-you stay, they were sharing conspiracy theories about the oncoming inevitable war for water.

Thanks UT. I love that last paragraph. That's really cool. :)

WOOT for Katkeeper! WTG for UT and his (large and extended) circle of loved ones who care for him and his. I'm glad to hear all is as well as it is.

happy happy happy!

Breaths per minute?

Judging by the line/symbol next to it, I'd say katkeeper has watched nyan cat 14 times?

Klout score?

Valentine told me that his mother died 3 months ago, at the same time as Whitney Houston; and his father died 2 years ago, at the same time as Michael Jackson.

He said with a grin that he was only sorry his parents got no traction with the media when they passed.

:)

My grandma died the same day as Diana.

Mom said Peter at the gates said "Oh, there's our classy beautiful person. And look! Diana too!"

The 14 is her breathing rate.

I only know this because I watched those damn things all day every day for months.

Ohmygod I HATE those things. They made me wear them after my second c-section, and I was literally clawing at my legs in frustration. It wasn't painful, more like Chinese water torture. After maybe 2 hours I just took them off under the blankets and didn't tell anyone.

Glad Momz is doing Good !!

Well today was not as good, and now we understand. Yesterday she was still under the effects of the meds they had her on during surgery. Today those wore off and she had a lot of pain for a while before the new meds went on.

It turns out you are supposed to not have pain, because you need to cough post-surgery but coughing is painful if your chest has recently been cracked open.

At the same time, while we were visiting she went into atrial fibrillation, and she felt like it was hard to breathe while her heart started beating really fast and awkwardly. The doc on call was called, and we were ushered out of the room while they tested her and settled her with IV meds. This is a common reaction after heart surgery, and is probably not overly serious, but you never know, and to have all that activity while we were there was just unsettling.

She is not out of the woods yet.

... <STRESS> ...

Hang in there, everybody.