The other day I got an invoice from the hospital for Rachana’s 100 days in Clements hospital, before we were moved to the rehab clinic for another 8 days. Take a wild guess as to how much it was for…… the number is further down in this blog. For those of you who are not familiar with the… Read More The cost of health care
Kids were SO HAPPY to see mama back home. We are blessed to have family around to take care of the kids when we were in the hospital, but the reality is that a 7 year old and a 4 year old lived an exceptionally well behaved few months without their parents. Yes, they met… Read More Back home, after 108 days
Early in the week Rachana was discharged from Clements University Hospital and admitted to Zale Lipshy Hospital, both part of the UT Southwestern system, which has a PMR (Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation) unit. Each day has a regimented schedule which includes one hour of PT (Physical Therapy) and one hour of OT (Occupational Therapy) in the… Read More In Physical Rehab
Predictable events are perhaps not exciting, but right now they are. Rachana’s health is quite stable and a little predictable now. She is breathing and eating without any assistance. This morning she walked about 200 steps without a sitting break. She does about 3 of these walks and about 15 mins in the gym each day;… Read More Settled into a holding pattern
Everyday is now looking a little bit better than the day before. In this past week the doctors removed both the chest tubes and the feeding tube as well. So now she has no tubes except the trach and the IV line for antibiotics. The plan is to ‘cap’ the trach maybe next week and let… Read More Pushing herself a little more everyday
Around noon on Christmas day, Rachana was discharged from the ICU to a regular floor. The last three weeks have been nothing short of a miracle. The nurses and doctors in the ICU have said, time and again, that this was one of the toughest case they’ve seen and are amazed at her resilience. They said… Read More ICU Day 85 – Discharged from ICU
Rachana showed such unbelievable progress that in about 10 days the doctors went from ‘she might never get off the ventilator’ to ‘she’s ready to get off the ventilator’. After a few days of breathing trails, turning the ventilator off during the day and just using some O2 support, the ventilator was switched off on Wednesday and… Read More ICU Day 77 – Off the ventilator
I really really really, really hope that last Saturday was the lowest point in her recovery, when the doctors asked us if we want to keep going. Since then Rachana has made a remarkable comeback. She’s not out of the woods yet but is progressing quite well. Early this week her CO2 came back to near… Read More ICU Day 71 – Breathing Trials
This week was rough for Rachana with two incidences of left lung collapse, and she is having a tough time recovering from them. Early in the week she was more awake and comfortable and also did two breathing trials for an hour each on consecutive days. She was also much more awake at night and… Read More ICU Day 64 – Keep going?
Nothing much has changed in the last few days. Rachana is still stable but critical. Stable means her condition is not constantly deteriorating, but Critical means the doctors are not sure if it’ll continue to get better, i.e. they are unsure of how things will unfold. Medically there is nothing much happening other than support.… Read More ICU Day 57 – Wait & See
Rachana's recovery from Leukemia 