walk #2

Just got back from walk #2 - down the hall a bit and back - after succesful walk #1 this morning. A respiratory specialist came by and said that Spoons need to be breathing deeper! She measured the oxygen level in his blood with a cool finger tip oxygen monitor and said is was a little low: 94% of something when it should be 95% or more. By the time he walked back to the room, it was up at 95% and she was happy. That's one of the reasons they want him up as much as possible.

All this talk of oxygen reminds me of incentive spirometers!



The incentive spirometer is a tool that is used for people to practice taking deep breaths. You hold the handle on the left hand side, exhale deeply, then inhale while you have the tube with the mouthpiece on the left in your mouth. The blue thing in the middle goes up, up, up as you breathe in. It can be hard for people to breathe after surgery because expanding the lungs into the abdomen can be painful, but it's important to get enough oxygen into the blood so practicing is essential. The thing I think that's the greatest about it (besides that it measures numbers, and I like measuring things) is that it kind of hangs out in the bed with the patient, since patients are supposed to practice with it every hour or so when they wake up. So, while Spoons is asleep, the incentive spirometer (which is about the size of an elephant stuffed animal) is there keeping him company.

Before the surgery, the nurse explained how to use it, and Spoons breathed all the way out, put the tube in his mouth, and breathed in until the blue marker was all the way at the top (meaning he'd inhaled the equivalent of 4 liters of air!) and then just kept inhaling and inhaling as the marker was pushed against the top. The nurse laughed and said, "I've never seen anyone do that before!" Spoons blushed a little bit. Another doctor examining his lungs put it a different way: "You've got lungs for two people!" So, yesterday after the surgery, it was hard for me to see that he could barely get up to 500 instead of 4000. Today, he's up back toward 1500. Being an over-achieve-y oldest child (like someone else I know), I can see the concentration on his face when he uses it, aiming for that 4000. Nurses and doctors keep reminding him to use it, and his face says, "Yes, yes, I know. Trust me, I am doing it. You don't have to remind me"

Also, I know you all are waiting for a Jerry update! His blood clot surgery went well, and he's going home today. He and his wife Mary were frustrated that the doctors want to observe him a little longer after surgery, because they really wanted to leave by 12:15 since that's 24 hours of parking, which is already $42. They offered him lunch up here, but he's sending Mary to the cafeteria for coffee and a danish. Don't worry everybody: his wife is driving the car home to NJ, though he says "letting his wife drive the car may be worse for him letting him drive." Yeah.