Doctor's Rounds

Every morning Dustin and I participate in doctors rounds. It is our opportunity to see how Mallry is doing and answer any questions we may have.

This morning was my first doctors rounds by myself. In the midst of all of the chaos of the past couple days, we had completely forgotten that we had a contract on our house and an appointment that morning for the home inspection.

This was my first experience with Dr. Gloom and Doom. (his nickname for himself not mine!) Dr. Cuadrado was a rough guy... A straight shooter. He tells it like it is with no false hopes and at times made me feel that he had given up on Mallory. Since then I have realized that it is just his style. Most of the Cardiologists are this way and their bedside manor may not be their strong suit...

This morning I picked up on a couple hormones and proteins that they were measuring daily to judge the progress she was making.

Brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) is secreted by the ventricles of the heart in response to excessive stretching of heart muscle. It is increased in patients with left ventricular heart disfunction or heart failure. When Mallory was admitted her BNP was 1400. This morning it had come down to 700. This number should be in the double digits.

Troponin is a protein that is released when the heart has been damaged. In a healthy heart, Troponin levels would be less than 1. At admission, Mallory's troponin levels were 21.9. This morning we were at 16.6.

For those that know me well, I am very much a numbers person. This made sense to me and was something that I could grasp and look for each morning in our doctors rounds.

Nothing at this point had shown up from all of the cultures and labs they had drawn and I had decided at it didn't matter to me what made Mallory sick, I just needed her to be healed.

Her rhythms appeared to be getting a little bit better and her swelling had gone down some.

This was the first time that Dr. Gloom mentioned a transplant. I was sitting alone listening to all of the smart doctors talk and they ordered blood work to evaluate transplant. That frightened me so much that I didn't even ask why at this point. I just called Dustin and lost it.