[conspire] MIT Classes

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Ruben Safir (ruben at mrbrklyn.com):

> that is a sad turn of events, and not a good outcome at all.  I'm
> very familiar with this kind of cascade

The cascade failure thankfully was halted at the ICU and they've kept
her stable enough to incrementally recover more each day.

At the time of the crisis a week ago Wednesday, here were her IVs:

o  Fentanyl citrate 10 mcg per mL:  opioid analgesic
o  Meropenem 500mg / 50 mL:  ultra-broad-spectrum injectable antibiotic
o  Norepinephrine LEVOPHED 8000 mcg:  probably being used to raise BP
o  Phenylephrine 80 mg / 250 mL:  probably being used to raise BP
o  Amiodarone CORDARONE 450 mg / 500 mL:  antiarrhythmic agent 
o  one big bag thgat I take to be saline

Short version:  She is incrementally improving each day, aiming towards
the needed surgical closure of her umbilical hernia that is the main
problem.

The best news is that her blood pressure is now much more
self-supporting, the Phenylephrine is gone, and the Norepinephrine has
been cut way back.  Yesterday evening, her O2 saturation hit 100%
(albeit still with ventilator support) for the first time since the
crisis began.  They weren't able to do dialysis three days ago because
her blood pressure dropped too much, but OTOH she's recovered kidney
function on her own since then, so it's probably no longer needed.
She's still on some Fentanyl plus the antibiotic and some of the
antiarrhythmic agent.  Her breathing and heartbeat are now regular and
strong.  But we really have no idea when the doctors will judge her
ready for the needed surgery.

Further updates will be on Deirdre's blog.

We just had a power outage from a spring thunderstorm; not a common
thing around here.

:r! uptime 

 12:56:02 up 25 min,  2 users,  load average: 0.05, 0.10, 0.14