Russ and Steve drove up to Chattanooga today to be here for a meeting with Gene's attending physician, Dr. Deversa. Pat was already here as she had come up last night and spent the night with Emily and Alan joined them all for the meeting. Lynn's doctor as well as Dr. Deversa have made Kindred off limits for her at this time.
The term desaturate from yesterday's blog brought lots of questions. The amount of oxygen saturation in the blood is supposed to be between 88 and 100. When it goes below that it is an indicator that the lungs are not exchanging oxygen efficiently. Gene desaturates sometimes when he is moved to the side. This is not a big move generally, just putting a wedge under his shoulder or torso to reposition him.
Dr. Deversa explained that Gene probably has acute respiratory distress syndrome. He also says that Gene is now in a coma, and that his lung tissue has probably become scarred from all his infections, and this prevents oxygen from passing through the lung tissue and making the exchange. They also believe that he has pneumonia, although that hasn't yet been confirmed by an x-ray. Every time they have to raise his oxygen level, that also causes damage to the lungs. It brings about a short term benefit, but over the long term it's not good. As of tonight Gene's ventilator settings have been raised and now are at 35 pressure and 60 oxygen.
Emily is staying at the hospital tonight. That's pretty hard on her physically, so Russ is going to relieve her at about 2:30 this morning.
At this point obviously the discussion about him being moved to another facility has been tabled.
Prayer Requests
Please pray for Gene's spirit to be calm and at peace and for the family to have peace in the days to come.
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