Morning 4/30/10

The cardiologists stepped aggressively in yesterday which is a really good sign. They felt Jill was well enough strength-wise and health-wise (related to the pneumonia) to start putting her through their testing plan. The MRI was first, and that came back normal. Yesterday, they did an angiogram. In this process, the doctor inserts a catheter into her femural artery and guides a wire up to her heart where he injects some dye to examine the blood flow in her arteries looking for blockages. Jill came out of this with flying colors, no blockages. She was a bit sore and went through another mild sedation but was doing well by late last night. She was doing so well that the hospital gave her the ok to move out of CCU and into the next level of care in a room with a view of the golf course (and the parking lot but golf course sounds a lot better).

This morning she was scheduled to do an ablation where they will insert a catheter into a large vein in her leg/groin and run a wire up to certain muscles in her heart where energy is sent to try to identify and/or normalize an abnormal heart rhythm. This test is scheduled for this morning.

In addition, the cardiologist decided he wanted to accelerate Jill's recovery by performing another procedure while she is anesthetized. He decided to insert a defibrillator pacemaker (AICD) in her chest. He has been talking about this for the last few days as a potential option for Jill but a final decision was made this morning. The defibrillator pacemaker will shock her heart back into the proper rhythm should anything like this ever happen again. Needless to say Jill has had a bit of hard time coping with this outcome due to her age and health but she's starting to get used to the idea. The rest of us look at this as extremely positive as we can't have this happen to her again. She is too special to all of us.

This morning came as quite a shock. The AICD solution wasn't surprising. It was more how quickly it all came about. She is in surgery right now as I write this, so please send your good thoughts and prayers one more time to help her get through this final surgery and recovery period. If everything goes as planned she should be able to come home in couple of days, thank heaven.

At the end of the today, she'll have climbed the mountain, reached the top and will now start her decent back to her life again with all of us. She still has a ways to go but it all looking very positive. There are a lot of things that had to happen for her to be in the situation she is in today. We are all very lucky and blessed.

For those that are interested in sending Jill a message, we started taking a laptop to her at the hospital so she can read the blog posts and the comments from all of you. Funny enough, Jill needs to read it too as she doesn't remember much of what happened that day or any of the first few days she was in the hospital. Also, she will likely be able to see visitors soon as well. Due to the outpouring of support from everyone, we'll have to figure out a gradual way for people to come see her. She still needs a lot of rest so we'll get the stealth team back together and figure out how to make it work.

Afternoon 4/29/10

My apologies for the delay in today's post. Things have picked up so a lot is going on.

To start off boldly, Jill is doing great! On Tuesday she was fully awake for the first time. She has full body function, although the doctors won't let her do much as she needs to be monitored at all times. Her short term memory hasn't been working too well but the doctors feel that this will likely return in about a week.

She has made a lot of progress but is really missing the kids. Allie is able to go see her on a daily basis but the hospital has a "no kids under 14" rule right now. Allie looks about 18 so she had no problems. To try and cheer Jill up, Uncle Dana and I went into stealth mode to try and get Trent into CCU to see her. He sucked his chest in and acted as old and as tall as he could and he got in. We actually caught a lenient group amongst the security folks and the nurses. She was so excited to him! Trent's visit actually is the first recent memory that stuck in Jill's memory and she is now starting to remember more and more. We still haven't gotten Jackson in to see her but thanks to the Black/Phillips family we set up a web cam conference so she could see and talk to him. Both of these interactions were healing in themselves. This is clearly an example that there is nothing stronger than a mother's love for her kids.

Jill's condition is really looking good. She's been sitting up in a chair quite a bit and actually got a little sunlight yesterday when we went to Huntington Hospital in Pasadena to get an MRI on her heart. The MRI results came back positive that everything was normal. The aspiration pneumonia also continues to get better as has her white blood cell count. The cardiologists (she has two now) have stepped in and have now started their tests (the MRI yesterday being the first). Today she will have an angiogram which will look for stoppages in her arteries or any other identifiable injuries to her heart. Assuming this comes out with no blockages, they will perform two more tests which will, without getting into too much detail, see if they trigger the problem again to identify what happened. They obviously aren't trying to start this whole process over again but need to know that these weren't the causes. The cardiologists believe that all these tests will likely be negative but they have to do them. Once all these tests are complete, they doctors will be able to determine what they will do going forward as a solution.

She will likely be moved tonight or tomorrow out of CCU down to the next level of care at the hospital. She still will require nurses that specialize in heart problems but anything with a window, a little sun and a view of the golf course or race track is better than CCU (it has 4 white walls).

She is having a difficult time sleeping right now so the nurses are trying to reduce the number of people that come to see her. I promise the second she is available for visitors I'll let everyone know and we'll figure out some orderly way to get people in to see her either at the hospital or at home. Everything is going as well as possible so keep up your good thoughts.

Morning 4/28/10

Jill continues to progress. She is speaking better and is looking better. They are gradually weaning her off some of the medications she has been on which is always a positive sign. She originally had some challenges with her blood pressure being too low so the doctors were regulating it to keep it up. Yesterday they took her off of the blood pressure medicine completely which was great. Her poor body went through a significant trauma and is really fighting to get back to normal. In usual Jill fashion, she wants things to happen as quickly and efficiently as possible, and laying around in bed 24 hours a day doesn't fit with Jill's style, but she's being as patient as she can be.

The doctor working with her the most now is the infectious disease doctor (the nurses work with her all the time and have been great by the way). Due to her catching the aspirational pneumonia, the infectious disease doctor was brought on board to make sure nothing spreads and to make sure she doesn't catch anything else while her body is weak. Her white blood cell counts have been high and she's been fighting the pneumonia, but both made nice progress yesterday. She was also running a temperature of about 101 degrees on Monday but that came down to 99 degrees yesterday.These three items are being closely watched and are the next hurdles Jill has to get through before the cardiologist can step back in to try and diagnose what may have happened and how to proceed going forward. This will probably take a couple of days.

Jill still is having some challenges as well with her short term memory. She doesn't remember what happened that day (which is probably good) and has remembered a limited number of things since (also probably good for the time being). With all the things that she's been through it is probably better that she start remembering the more current components of her recovery than the very trying ones. We can tell her about those later. The doctors don't seem too concerned at this point as she's been through a lot and she's only been awake for two days. She's made phenomenal progress. The doctors and nurses are amazed at how much she's progressed in such a short amount of time. No doubt this is a combination of her spirit and all the good thoughts and prayers she been getting from everyone who cares for her. Keep them coming.

Morning 4/27/10

It was a very positive day yesterday all and all. As I mentioned Jill woke up in the morning and gradually got some of her faculties back. By lunch time she was about 75% awake and wanting to communicate. She still had the breathing tube in her mouth so she was unable to say anything. She requested a pad of paper and pencil and started to write down questions such as, "what happened?", "where is she?", "how are the kids?", and "did you call work to tell them I wasn't going to be there today?" She is definitely starting to become her old self again. She is having some challenges with her short term memory, however. She doesn't remember what happened on Saturday or a lot of what has happened since (even when awake) but this is not unusual in situations like this. As much as we want everything to be better as soon as possible, there will clearly be things that will take time.

The breathing tube was her next challenge. It was very uncomfortable so she went right to the nurse and told them she wanted this removed. They started weaning her off of it in the late morning and by early afternoon they took it out and she was breathing on her own again. Another very positive sign.

She is still fighting the aspirational pneumonia. The cardiologist can't do any further tests to try and figure out what caused this until the infection specialist gives the ok. The pneumonia doesn't seem to bother her too much other than deep cough in her already sore throat (from the breathing tube that used to be there).

We are now back to waiting. Once she kicks the pneumonia, the doctors can start progressing again to figure out what happened and where do we go from here. She still is in CCU so she still isn't able to see visitors. They actually requested again yesterday that we take it easy on family visitors as well.

It was a great day yesterday. Keep up your thoughts and prayers, they appear to be working.

Good News - 4/26/10 morning

Jill came out of the "cooling" process this morning at about 1am. From there the doctor started to reduce the paralytic medication as well as the amount of sedatives she was receiving. At a little after 4am, Jill opened her eyes. She was still very groggy as you would expect. By 6am, she was trying to communicate but was really unable to due to the breathing tube in her throat. She was moving her hands and feet slightly which was also very positive.

At the same time, she appears to have caught aspirational pneumonia which is the doctors say is pretty common in situations such as Jill's. She is being given antibiotics in addition to everything else.

This is great first step but the recovery process is just beginning. The next major steps in her recovery are to get her off the respirator that has been breathing for her for the last two days, to get rid of the pneumonia, and to let the cardiologist do his thing to try and figure out why this happened and where to go from here.

We have gotten a lot of requests to visit Jill at the hospital. While she is in CCU, the hospital won't let anyone in other that our immediate family. CCU is similar to intensive care with nurses tending to Jill 24 hours a day. The family is even restricted a bit as they don't want her to be overstimulated in the early stages of her recovery. So please be patient. I will let you know when the doctors give us the ok for Jill to see visitors.

It has been a great morning. God Bless.

Sunday 4/25/10

Today is pretty quiet day. Jill has been in the "cooling" process for most of the day. At approximately 6pm, the doctors started warming her up. This process takes about 6-8 hours so she should be back to her normal body temperature in the early morning tomorrow. She will also be taken off the other medications that paralyzed her body and kept her asleep. Once all of these medications have worn off and she has had some time to rest, she will be able to wake up, move her body, etc, if she can. Keep your fingers crossed.

What happened - 4/24/10

As many of you already know, Jill was helping Trent put on his catcher's gear at his baseball game on Saturday and collapsed in the dugout. There were three people at the game (and thank god they were there) that performed CPR on the spot and kept Jill breathing until the paramedics arrived and took her to Methodist Hospital in Arcadia. She was in a comatose state when she arrived. The doctors did some tests to try and find the cause of her collapse but failed to find the cause before she was put through a "cooling treatment". This "cooling treatment" takes her core body temperature down to about 90 degrees for 24 hours to try and reduce the trauma to her body to minimize the chance of brain damage or damage to her vital organs. As this process lasts about 24 hours, and its goal was to keep Jill in coma, all we can do is wait for the "cooling" process to end and for the doctors to start warming her up.

Updates on Jill

I figured the best way to keep everyone posted on what is going on with Jill is to set up a blog and update it periodically. This way everyone can check in whenever it is convenient and get the latest updates. I'll do my best to update the blog as frequently as possible. I believe you have the ability to post your own comments but I likely won't respond directly as I'm hoping this will be informational more than conversational.

I'd also like to thank everyone who has called, emailed or sent a text, to any of us in the family, and offered their support and prayers. It is comforting to know that everyone is so willing to help in this trying time. You are all truly great friends.