Developments

Monday morning (10/06) at 3am the ICU called to ask for consent to put breathing tubes into her lungs because they were filling with fluid. They called again at 7am to ask for consent to take her back into surgery because she was not responding, and they feared that there may be additional infection or an addition perforation in her bowel. This, of course, was extremely upsetting.

Since that point her progress has been very slight and tenuous. We have consistently worried that she won't be able to recover. Since Tuesday she has required less medication, less breathing support, less fluid, etc. This has begun to feel encouraging; however, her progress is very slow.

A burn specialist looked at the sores/damage to her legs and said that she will likely require skin grafts, but that her condition could be much worse (the doctor said that if it extended to her hands and feet it often requires amputation).

The ICU doctors say that she is doing much better. Her heart rate is down (from the 140s to the 110s), the oxygen they need to give her is down from 80% to 60%, the pressure in her lungs after she expels air is down from 16 to 12 (lower is better), the amount of fluids they are feeding into her is down about 1 liter overnight, her ph has been quite acidic and has returned to normal, etc.

The surgeons plan to take her into surgery again tomorrow morning to reconnect her intestines, barring any down-turns in her condition. They will also insert a feeding tube at that time. They will not begin feeding her through that tube for 24 hours and will watch for leaks in her intestine for 5 days. Unless her condition is significantly worse after the surgery tomorrow, they will try to take her off the medications that keep her paralyzed and will try to bring her back to consciousness.

They will not sew her belly up until the swelling, caused by the tremendous amounts of fluids they have pumped into her body, goes down. They said that when the body stabilizes the fluids actually come out quite quickly. When they do sew her up, it will likely involve several surgeries in which they will sew up either end of the cut a little bit at a time.

I have been impressed with the medical staff here in the University of Utah Hospital. As a teaching hospital there are always dozens of doctors attending to Heather's needs and consulting with each other on how best to treat her. They have been very kind and considerate of my needs for information. It is shocking to me how much time and caring they offer to me.

Heather's OB/GYN doctor (Harry Hatasaka) and all of his department are extremely concerned about this situation and have been surprisingly attentive to what is going on. Dr. Hatasaka visits Heather at least twice per day. He spent 1/2 hour talking with me last night. Heather has multiple monitors that track everything that her body is doing. All the doctors in the hospital have access to this data. Dr. Hatasaka said that he practically has her numbers as his computer desktop. This was very evident when another doctor came in as we were talking and Dr. Hatasaka spouted all of her data trends for the day. He also explained that he has been so concentrated on her situation and how it happened that he went the wrong way while driving home the night before. He said that the OB/GYN Department will be having one of the biggest conferences ever today to discuss Heather's case.

We are pleased with her improvement. Thank you for your prayers and concern. Please keep them coming!!!