Sunday, May 27, 2012

Busy Week

Wow, this has been an incredibly busy week!  Chris has been busy resting & healing, and I have been busy attending to his every need.  I was nervous about this post-surgery period... and rightly so.  I haven't had a baby, and I'm guessing this is as close as it comes -- being depended upon for someone's every need.  I'm exhausted.  Luckily, my 'baby' grows up in 6-8 weeks!  :)

Chris had his orientation at the new St. Luke's Cardiac Rehab Center on Wednesday.  We really liked Amber, the nurse.  We were hoping she could remove the stitches from his chest tubes, but she didn't have a suture removal kit.  It turns out that her exercise class in the early afternoons works best for our schedule, so he'll be working with her every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday starting this coming Tuesday.  They're closed for the Memorial Day weekend.  His first week, he'll come in early on Tuesday to meet with their doctor and stay late on Thursday to meet with their counselor.

Thursday was his big monthly DaVita clinic appointment with their staff.  Everyone was happy to see Chris doing so well.  He even got a round of applause!  They did blood work, and Jennifer gave Chris 26,000 units of EPO since we didn't think he had any at the hospital.  Dr. Mallea asked us several questions about the surgery to which we didn't know the answers (like how many units of blood was Chris given), so Jennifer is going to get the surgical report from the U of Utah.  Jennifer was able to get Chris' sutures out, and he's VERY happy about that.

At the next visit, it'll be about 6 months since his dialysis catheter was implanted, so he'll get his transfer set replaced.

Coming up:
  • We're expecting to receive a survey from the U of Utah Hospital to tell them what we thought.  Chris was very frustrated with their dialysis system and is looking forward to the chance to tell them about his experiences.
  • We're waiting to hear from Dr. Gomez-Abraham's assistant Michele about the need for an echocardiogram.
  • We're also waiting for Michele to get us a letter from the Doctor about Chris' June 5th follow-up trip to SLC.


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