What Happened to Saturday?
In January 2014, my wife Donna went into Sibley Hospital to get rid of fluid building in her body as a result of minimal change disease. Hardly minimal. She’d gained 15 water pounds in two days. Within 24 hours, all hell broke loose. Pneumonia filled her lungs with fluid, her kidneys failed, her heart was on the brink. She was rushed quickly into the ICU and intubated, where she lived for three weeks to survive again. What Happened to Saturday? is the story of that first week near death.
There were so many emails and phone calls, I could not answer them. Truthfully, I tired of telling the same story endlessly over and over again. So, each day I summarized the day’s health events. When Donna came out of her drug-induced wooze, she realized she had no idea what happened for almost a complete week. Her first words to me when I began to explain her situation were “What happened to Saturday?” Later, I collected some of the emails that came in daily as well as my daily “post” so she could learn, finally, what happened to Saturday.
Saturday, Jan 18, 2014, 10:23 PM
Dear Friends of Donna,
Donna is in critical condition at Sibley Hospital. Some of you don’t know that so this will come as a bit of a shock. I’m sorry for that. But here’s an update on how she is doing.
She was admitted on Friday in an effort to begin diuresis to remove the water retained as a result of her newly diagnosed kidney condition. It turns out she has double pneumonia as a result of the breakdown in the body’s immune system caused by the prednisone therapy. Her pneumonia caused serious difficulty breathing, a situation that worsened dramatically as the day went on. This ultimately led her to be admitted to the ICU and finally, a breathing tube was inserted because her own struggle to breathe was exhausting her. She is sedated, stable and sleeping now. Broad spectrum antibiotics are being used to try to bring the infection under control. A culture will be taken to see if targeted antibiotics can be prescribed. We’ll see how she does day by day but we can expect this to go on for three to five days as the treatment continues. I’ll keep you all posted daily on her improving condition.
Thank you so much for your concern and expressions of sympathy. Mikell, James and I will be there to support Donna. As soon as she is out of the ICU and ready to have visitors, I will let you know. I appreciate the many offers of help and loving expressions of sympathy but, honestly, until we can turn this around and get Donna on her feet again, there is simply nothing to do except keep a vigil with me as she gets better. This is a gal who’s never been sick a day in her life and suddenly finds herself in a big struggle.
Love you all,
Burkey