Day 6 - April 16th

Today we suffered a setback.

As was mentioned yesterday, we were anticipating Jan being transfered to the Health South Rehabilitation Hospital today. There was one problem however. Jan's blood oxygen level was persistently low. Even though she had been working hard, it wasn't budging. This caused the trauma team to order another CT scan for her, as well as more Xray's of her pelvis. The CT scan revealed the following:

1. She had two blood clots in her lungs. They were small, and were located in the periphery of the lungs. Nevertheless, they were interfering with her breathing and consequently her blood oxygen level.
2. It turns out that her spleen was also injured in the crash. The CT scan done Saturday night in the ER had missed it. It was a small injury, but it bled (although it has stopped bleeding now). They figure that at least some of the clotting in the lungs came from it's bleeding. The rest probably came from bleeding in the pelvis.

It turns out that there really isn't anything you can do to remove the clots; they have to do that on their own. You simply need to make sure that the clots don't get any bigger. To that end, it was decided to inject a potent blood thinner in order to get rid of any thickening in the blood that would add to the clots. The potential problem with this is it might cause the spleen to start bleeding again, and they would have to shut down the blood thinner. If that were to happen, they would remove the spleen.

Making sure that this regimen works correctly requires a constant monitoring of Jan. To that end, they decided to move her back to the Intentive Care Unit as a precautionary measure. If the spleen starts to bleed, they will immediatly get her into surgery and remove it. Because of the potential for surgery, she can't eat or drink anything (other than sips of water and ice chips) because she has to have an empty stomach for surgery (if it is needed). They estimate that Jan will need to remain in the Intermountain Medical Center for five additional days before going to the rehabilitation hospital. As can be deduced by all of this, Jan didn't go to the rehabilitation hospital today (duh!).

Between going for the CT Scan, Xrays, and finally the move to the ICU; Jan has been moved from one bed to another SEVEN times today. It's just about killed her. She ended the day very tired. Jan requested another health blessing which was given by Jan's father and myself. The spirit repeated the same message as the other two blessings, plus gave additional insight. We ended the day comforted.

Jan has received a lot of flowers and well wishes. It is all deeply appreciated. Also appreciated are all the prayers. We feel their effectiveness. Finally, we appreciate the army in our ward that has been mustered to help with meals and getting Meg where she needs to be. It would take an eternity to repay all of you.