October Update on Mom

Well, a lot has transpired since I last posted. Mom had her pacemaker put in. She also got a pneumothorax as a result of a nick in her lung allowing air to get into her chest space. This means she got air between her lung and lung sac. As of today, however

The air in her lung sac is gone
Her pacemaker was adjusted from a 60 beat per minute to a 70 beat per minute pace. This means that her heart will never go below 70 beats per minute.
Doctor Cohen changed her prescription. He has deleted one 25 mgToporal XL and replaced it with Verapamil which is the lowest dose med. and a diuretic which she is to take in the morning. I need to give him a call as Mom/Karen/Mary don't think she is retaining water.

From the question list:

Mom can sleep on any side she wishes.
The extreme pain she experienced the night she came home was probably the air leak pressing on her lung. That is gone now and she has no pain.

She can now shower whenever she wants. Swimming pool next week when the last little corner of the incision is healed.

The light-headedness, floaty feeling and shortness of breath is a result of three things:

• The pneumonia which can take a long time to return to health
• The Atrial Fibrillation - which means that when the heart does the extra ta-da's the blood is not sent out of the heart and thus there is a reduction in oxygenated blood to her organs
• The fast heartbeat which wooshes blood through her system too fast and thus, isn't oxygenated enough.

This is why the pacemaker was implanted so they can reduce the heart beat and not kill her off when her heart used to beat at 45 and how low it would go was unknown.

Doctor Cohen hopes that the additional meds will take care of the heart issues otherwise, he stated again, that Mom is a candidate for ablation, which means he would cauterize a spot on her heart and she would be totally dependent upon the pacemaker. I asked him about risk and he said that 1 in 5000 have problems and yes, he has had some patients die. An ablation would, however, stop the AF and have her tick just like clockwork. Obviously this is something that can be discussed down the road if necessary.

Mom's coumadin levels went from 1.3 to 2.3 in one week. We will check it again next week, the 22. On the 23 we will see the lung doctor. We will see Cohen again on Nov. 12.

Mom can drive, lift her arm and, in general do what she wants but she shouldn't be lifting heavy objects for a while yet.

Dr. Cohen said it took him 2 months to get his energy back after a small pneumonia last year. So Mom should be patient with getting her energy back as hers was a bit larger than his.