Morning, June 13

(e-mail from B. Parady)

I am coming to a very difficult point in Sabina's progress.

As you can imagine, it is difficult sleeping at night. What I am missing is hope at this point. The meeting yesterday with the doctors left me with no hope but a long, quiet say in a nursing home for Sabina.

Her temp is 106 and not controllable. She has been storming all night long, and horribly contorted. Her kidneys are shut down. They are looking for clots, doing spinal tap, cat scans.

I think Sabina's time is short.

Afternoon, June 11 (Part Two)

(e-mail from B. Parady)

Things are going downhill and little is being done. Shelly has communicated her wishes to the doctors and Sabina will soon be gone.

I am trying to contact the doctors to find out what is going on.

Afternoon, June 11

(e-mail from Cat)

Sabina isn't doing so well today. They had tried to decrease her meds to see if they could figure out the special mixture in order to keep her from storming, but they weren't able to. She has been storming all day through her full strength meds. Her temperature hit 106 and her heart rate hit 200. Currently, she has a temp of 105 with a heart rate of 120-130.

Evening, May 30

(e-mail from B. Parady)

Another rough day. Don't know how to express Shelly's feelings. The pneumonia and the fever and coincident fevers are causing Shelly to doubt whether care will be effective.

Today Sabina had a fever that went up to 102 and is now stable at 99. She stormed with high heart rate and high BP. She is on three antibiotics for pneumonia.

My prayer is for Sabina to recover from the pneumonia and to end her storming.

I pray for Shelly's restoration and strength through this most difficult period. I pray for God's love to heal Sabina.

Evening, May 29

(e-mail from B. Parady)

Another very rough day.

Sabina had a fever all day, partly due to the pneumonia and partly due to the fact that she has to take an antibiotic that she is allergic to. She is running a fever of 102.7 at present and they are contemplating a cooling blanket. They fear that the blanket may bring on a storm so are laying back.

My prayers are for Sabina to get through this latest crisis with the pneumonia, and for her strength to be restored. My prayers to Shelly for staying by Sabina through all of this.

Evening, May 27

(e-mail from B. Parady)

Not a good day. Sabina had several storms or fever spikes during the day going to 101 at times. She is in pain grinding her teeth. They had to put a tongue depresser between her teeth.

They talked Friday about cutting her pain killers and this may be the effect of that maneuver,
fearing that the pain killers are causing nausea. She had to go off feed today because of vomiting, and went back on this evening as was on Jevity 2 upped to 10/hour as Shelly left at 9.

My prayer is for Sabina to stabilize and begin feeding and adjusting to the pain killers. My prayers for her doctors and nurses to see through this for Sabina. My prayers for Shelly to give her strength.

Evening, May 24

(e-mail from B. Parady)

Sabina's spirits have been good all day. The problems are elsewhere. She vomited up all her food and to compensate, they are giving her 2 units of blood. After being put on the respirator for the operation, she now has pneumonia again.

I offer my prayer for Sabina's recovery from pneumonia and being able to digest again. May her recovery continue.

Evening, May 22

(e-mail from B. Parady)

Rough day. Sabina had a fever that was determined to be a central fever through most of the day. She has a fever of 101. Her arms are swollen, possibly due to a clot.

The shunt went in successfully late in the day.

Shelly is with Sabina, and staying till at least 11:30.

My prayers for Sabina's recovery from surgery and fevers. I pray for Shelly and her comfort.

Morning, May 18

(e-mail from B. Parady)

The bone flap is the wrong shape for Sabina's head. Sabina will in alllikelihood require installation of a shunt.

My prayer is that Sabina will come through all of this and that her doctors will ensure her health. I pray for Shelly's comfort.

Morning, May 15

(e-mail from B. Parady)

Sorry for being a bit late, but Sabina's surgery was canceled today due to an emergency surgery preemption.

Wednesday is completely booked, so Sabina's surgery will go on as scheduled on Thursday.

Evening, May 11

(e-mail from B. Parady)

Things went from great to terrible last night. We had a storm as I was in her room after 10pm. Hard to watch as she writhed. They got her back to normal in a short period of time, within 2 hours.

What the storm did was call into question her infectious state, and because of that she lost her place in line at 7am. So no surgery today. It has been rescheduled for Monday.

Most of the day was quite calm today with a fair amount of eye activity. Some vomiting indicating some digestive distress, perhaps impaction. They were about to relieve it this evening and she had another storm at a little after 9. I am now waiting it out.

So my prayers for Sabina to get over this storm in safety.

Evening, May 7

(e-mail from B. Parady)

Wild and woolly day. Shelly and I visited Sabina this morning at Helen Hayes not knowing what the day brings. We needed to take care of some affairs in the city and when we returned as we were eating we got the call that the ambulance was on its way to take Sabina back to Columbia.

It turns out Sabina had a spike fever this morning and the swelling over her craniectomy. The concerns raised were whether to install a shunt and whether she had an infection.

She is now in room 8-354, next door to her old room. Tomorrow morning we need to be in at 9 am to approve of whatever procedure needs to be done tomorrow. The go-no-go is in the hands of the infectious disease team.

So for now, we are both praying for her restoration and good care at Columbia and return to Helen Hayes.

Evening, April 28

(e-mail from B. Parady)

The first half of the day went well, but then Sabina had another neurological storm. The typical storm as you know has been a spike in fever and rapid heart rate. We thought that after not having any storms for almost a week that they had passed.

Not sure that Sabina will be leaving to Helen Hayes early next week if they don't get a handle on the storms.

The staff treated the storm quickly and the demerol made her sleepy for the rest of the day.
So the optimism of the week faded a bit today, but we all know that there are ups and downs in recovery.

I will offer a prayer for Sabina's continued good care and a management of her storms.

Evening, April 20

(e-mail from B. Parady)

As Shelly pointed out, we discussed Sabina's prognosis with Dr Parra. He is not optimistic, then, we were given no reason to be optimistic. When she came here she was in worse shape than she is now. She was tense, pained, and bad off. They are doing EEGs 24/7 to track her activity. They are taking her off anti-convulsives since she seems stable. They are weaning her off the respirator and she is responding. Dr Parra is applying stimulative drugs to perk her up and get some activity going. Sabina does open her eyes now. Earlier this week she did not. She does not track yet with her eyes. She perhaps responded to my touch by opening her eyes. We shall see if this becomes consistent. Dr Parra has been honest, direct, caring, and professional

Dr Parra is planning to reconstruct her skull and will carry out the process to do that. He will not use the flap at St Vincent's. We are working on transition to another facility, whether SCVMC or Helen Hayes Hospital upriver in New York.

She is in the hands of God. May the Lord protect her and strengthen her.

My Precious Daughter

(e-mail from S. Moore)

Today Dr. Parra told us that Sabina's injuries were very severe and he does not expect her to recover from her current state.

Evening, April 17 (Extra Report)

(e-mail from B. Parady)

Well, it was close. A trauma patient moved in just as the transfer was to take place.

So one window closes for today, and we begin again tomorrow with hope that the transfer happens in due course. What was I saying about this all being a roller-coaster.

So Sabina had a good day. She was drying out from all the heavy drugs used Sunday night to stanch her spike. She held her temp at 98.6 all day till evening. It began to spike but the Arctic Sun stanched it and she was left under machine control with excellent vitals.

Tomorrow the anticipation begins again. Pray for no more trauma patients at NYP Columbia.

Evening, April 13

(e-mail from B. Parady)

Well, I am back in town till Wednesday. Here is the log for the day.

Her agitation threshold has lowered. Becomes uncomfortable very easily. She was very alert all day. Did not respond to commands. Seems to be distracted by the pain. Is becoming used to narcotics. It takes a lot to give her pain relief. Remembering that when she did respond to commands a couple of weeks ago, the pain relief was effective at that time. Other medications may be in order to bring her forward.

Morning, April 3

(e-mail from B. Parady)

Had a chat with Hirschfeld, all the good it may do. Sabina seems more unstable than ever after yesterday morning's excursion to near death. I told him that care varied from excellent to catastrophic and he apologized. Words fail me.

He agreed to put Sabina back on Arctic Sun which they use to control spiking fevers associated with TBI. They had been using it until dear Ruth removed it because she was untrained and believed in alcohol swabbing.

Just why am I attending physician and why is the attending neurosurgeon out to lunch? Where is my medical degree? And just what qualifies Hirschfeld to care for my daughter? I am confused.

I need to pray harder than ever for Sabina to overcome the abuse that she has suffered. The Lord protect her, keep her safe and restore her.

Evening, March 31

(e-mail from B. Parady)

Welcome back to the roller coaster.

After one really good day, we come back to spiking pneumonia fevers, and seizure when the fever spiked. The doctor let the fever go up to get a better culture of the nasty, but upset me by inducing the seizure. Medicine is sure a fun profession. Must be hard to be a doctor. Rough day for Shelly too, where Sabina spent the day sedated with propofol. Andre and Warren and Trish, some of the best were on duty, which made life much better than if things were going wild.

Sabina had to go back to 40% respiratorand respirator triggered breathing. The episode set back her vent weaning a few more days.

Hard to get through these down days after such wonderful days. I keep praying for some steady, even, level where Sabina can start building a recovery.