This afternoon, Dad was freed from a number of other attending tubes and devices. \u00a0The biggest deal is the chest drain. \u00a0The drain was a rubber hose the diameter of my pinky that has been in his chest since the surgery. \u00a0This afternoon it was removed. \u00a0While it was a painful process, it’s an important step toward healing and recovery.<\/p>\n
Also, he no longer needs constant connection to IV drips. This means he can go for a walk around the floor without dragging an IV tower with him. \u00a0The IV connections (two of them) are still in, as standard practice in the ICU, in case they need to administer drugs or fluids quickly, but they aren’t currently in use. \u00a0The only major connections he has left are the pacemaker wires and a telemetry connection to electrodes on his chest. \u00a0Both of these are related to monitoring and\/or controlling the heart’s current condition. <\/span><\/p>\n They turned the pacemaker down, so it will only kick in if his heart rate drops below 54 beats per minute. \u00a0This speed decrease means his normal rhythm can take charge and control his heart. \u00a0Unfortunately, the “bundle of his”, which carries the signal from the sinoatrial node to the ventricles, isn’t carrying the signal to beat. \u00a0The ventricles have developed their own rhythm, but this means that the atrium and ventricles are not beating cooperatively as they should. \u00a0The electrocardiology folks suggest letting his natural rhythm run overnight, to see if they sync up. \u00a0If they don’t, a pacemaker will be installed to keep the two in sync.<\/p>\n Assuming all goes according to plan, and Dad still needs a pacemaker by tomorrow afternoon, they will install it then. \u00a0He’ll need a couple more days in the ICU to recover, and then he should be ready to go to the general hospital floor. \u00a0When that milestone is reached, he’ll just be a few more days away from going home. \u00a0Here’s hoping that comes soon. :-)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This afternoon, Dad was freed from a number of other attending tubes and devices. \u00a0The biggest deal is the chest drain. \u00a0The drain was a rubber hose the diameter of my pinky that has been in his chest since the surgery. \u00a0This afternoon it was removed. \u00a0While it was a painful process, it’s an important […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mike.bensonk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mike.bensonk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mike.bensonk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mike.bensonk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mike.bensonk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mike.bensonk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54,"href":"https:\/\/mike.bensonk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions\/54"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mike.bensonk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mike.bensonk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mike.bensonk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}