I’m here in Ramona’s room and she’s got a lot of other guests, too.

It varries from minute to minute. Right now it’s just her nurse and me, but 20 minutes ago there were 5 people in here. Ramona’s blood pressure and heart rate are the topic of concern for these professionals. Her blood pressure is low and her heart rate is high. I keep getting told that this is normal post op behavior, and due to “fluid shift”. When a patient is put on a heart bypass machine, their blood is pumped out of the body, through an oxygenating machine, and back in. The body treats this blood coming back in with some suspicion, and raises “inflammatory markers”. This causes the vein walls to inflame and loosen, allowing fluids to more readily move out of the vein. So…fluid moving out lowers the blood pressure and raises the heart rate. They pump fluids into her IV and her body reacts almost instantly. It’s amazing.

Otherwise Ramona seems to be doing great. She doesn’t need a few helpful medications that she had last time, and her sats are good. In fact, The Stranger just started playing on her iPod, and her sats jumped 5 points, so I’m a proud Papa.

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