Day 7 - April 17th

Today was a big and eventful day, she moved out of ICU and into a cardiac ward! Yippee! They call it 'step down' but it is the 'normal' cardiac ward. The next move is being discharged but we are not yet sure when that will happen, sometime this week is what people have said.

She is off all IVs which was a requirement to get out of ICU and now is taking oral meds. It seems to me that she is taking fewer type of meds than she was before, just about 1/2 dozen of them. She does have to take pills multiple times a day and that is now the norm but it seems that there are fewer types of meds and some may someday be eliminated.

After the transplant she had an external defibrillator which had wires running through her stomach to her heart and those wires were taken out this morning. That was pretty painful since they had twisted around each other and it was tough to get them out.

She walked around the nurses station today while talking. That was on her second walk of the day. She only stopped twice and it was to look at pictures on the wall but I think the stops helped.

She still has pleural effusions (water around the lungs) which they are watching to see if they grow or shrink. They are hoping that the diuretics will take care of them but if not they will tap them again. For today it was a wait and see but tomorrow they will be able to tell from her daily chest x-ray and then figure what to do.

Tomorrow I am moving from the hotel to the transplant house, Gift of Life, to get things ready for her. One of the requirements to be able to move in is that you have taken a tour which we did a few years ago so I will be brought up to date on the rules there, some may have changed. The Gift of Life is not run by Mayo but if you are on a transplant list or have had a transplant you can stay there. It is extremely clean and you do your own cooking. They encourage people to talk to others and build a sense of community with each other. I have talked to people who have stayed there and the think it is a great place.

She seems more like herself today, I think getting off the strong pain meds has helped that a lot. She still gets tired and takes naps but I expected that.

When I think that one week ago right now we were waiting for the plane to take us for a heart transplant it is amazing how well she is doing now. I never would have expected her to be in the shape she is now, I was expecting far worse.