It's been a tough 24 hours over here since the First Mate inadvertently wound up playing a new medical game called, "Where The Hell Did That Come From?" Last night at the end of her dialysis run, when she stood up to get her blood pressure measured, her chest access just plopped out onto the floor. Since this had just previously been plugged into a pulmonary artery, the dropped shunt caused quite the commotion in the dialysis center. Two nurses pushed her back into the recliner and laid her out flat while one of them started pressing a bandage into her chest.

We thought she'd have to get transported immediately to the hospital, but the bleeding turned out to be minimal. However, she still had a hole in her chest and no access for dialysis, so today we had to get her to the hospital to have a new shunt installed. That wound up taking all day; we just got home a few minutes ago. Needless to say, neither one of us got much sleep last night and perkiness is not the order of the day.

It's kind of a shame, because the shunt had been operating so well and the overall medical news is actually pretty good. The polyoma virus count has come down from 5 million to 29,000 as of last month, and next week we'll find out if it's still improving. We need to boost her T-cell counts, but she's looking much better for a transplant than before.

Hopefully she doesn't try dribbling it downcourt like she did last night with the shunt ....

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