Sunday, 10:30 pm

I was in the room tonight when Dr. Milano, the surgeon, came by at around 8:30. I had heard that the man never sleeps, and I think that must be true. Anyway, he said that he isn't so sure about the pneumonia diagnosis, and in his experience it is unusual (but not unheard of) for a patient to develop pneumonia as quickly as John did after his surgery, considering how the surgery went. So he is wanting to treat him for basically pulmonary edema, or fluid surrounding and in the lungs, with more diuretics (he's already been taking some) and some nitroglycerin. He thinks part of it might be coming from the fact that John's kidneys and other organs are used to working with his old heart, and his blood pressure was normally in the 90's over the 60's. He thinks that taking off more fluid and using the nitroglycerin to dilate his blood vessels further might help his breathing more. So, poor John had to get more of the diuretic Lasix tonight and will spend the next five hours or so having to do something other than sleep.

He is feeling okay, but is getting pretty shaky. He did get to eat a few bites of jello and a few bites from a frozen fruit bar so we were pretty excited about that. Hopefully he will be able to eat more in the morning. He was able to talk pretty well today and he sure did work hard at breathing deeply and trying to open up those lungs so I hope this plan will help make it easier for him to breathe.

Will fill you in on the update tomorrow!