Priorities, priorities...

I'll post later about my week. For right now the concern in MaryR.  She sent me a text last night asking if I could take her "to the ER, no rush."  OK, I know Irish American gals pretty well. Those words mean "Right now!" 

When I arrived ten minutes later, Mary croaked out that she could not breath, that something had apparently gone down into her lungs and she was having great difficulty.  Took her to the closest hospital, El Camino-Los Gatos.  For those of you who recall, Mary had her vegas nerve removed in 2008 (click here for that blog).  The vegas nerve controls the muscles in the throat which means Mary had to learn how to talk, swallow and do other normal things all over again as half of her throat has lost its nerve control system.  Well, it is no surprise that she had difficulty if food went "down the wrong pipe." 

Once there, the triage nurse put the oxygen monitor on first and was digging around for the blood pressure cuff.  Before she could get the cuff on her, the oxygen monitor was providing a value--much too low.  The ER nurse then said, "Let's put you in a bed and finish this in there."  The put her into a bed, whipped an oxygen supply on her and were watching carefully to see if she reacted. She did, the reading climbed to 99-100 fairly quickly. As the value climbed, Mary said she was feeling much, much better but not nearly 100 percent. 

There are two likely scenarios. One, she may be suffering from either pneumonia because of the food entering her lungs and that's what food does--cause pneumonia.  The other likely problem is that she caught a flu bug and that is making her regurgitate and in the regurgitation, it went into her lungs.

They had her stay last night and given her history and that she still cannot hold food, the are keeping her another day.  Right now, I am out and about running errands while Mary is having a CT scan performed.  Hopefully, the CT scan will simply rule out any physical blockage and that will leave us with a flu bug that prompted all of this activity. 


Anyway, more later!


Pat