Update on the world of Sara

Sara had a pretty hard week last week. She finally fought off that gnarly infection. A couple of weeks of hardcore antibiotics, deep lung suctioning, and coughing until she was purple finally got the junk out of the lungs. The antibiotics took care of other sources of infection, one of which was her PICC line into a vein near the heart.

What was hard on her was her spirit. Mike saw it earlier in the week...she wasn't smiling as much. I saw it...she seemed pretty flat..detached. I asked if they had her on any painkillers or other drugs other than the antibiotics. They didn't, and had noticed a change in her mood, as well.

It took three days to finally get it out of her. She is depressed. She is feeling physically fine now and starting to feel like her entire world is going to be inside of a hospital room. She also has the ability to communicate via the computer, but doesn't know what to say to anyone. She's been in silence for 7 months, expressing only needs, and she doesn't know how to start communicating again. She wants her friends and family to be there for her, communicate with her, be part of her life, but she doesn't know how to reach out and re-engage them. So she decided she wasn't going to. She decided that she was going to pull into herself and not try. And that brought her down, very down.

Once I was finally able to get to the heart of the matter she and I talked a long time about it. We shared some tears. I got some of her fears out in the open. We talked about ways to make it easier to reengage her world. We talked about plans for the near future and focused on bringing her home. I told her that I take her mental health as seriously as her physical health, and that it was time to make a change for both.

So, I whipped up the staff into a froth on Friday and got the doctor, discharge planner, nursing supervisor, and social worker all focusing on getting SAra out fo there. I don't care if she goes to KVRC or if we get trained at Walnut Creek, but she's coming home. I talked to Dr. Hospitalist at length on Saturday, and she totally concurred that it is time to transition her to home.

On Saturday, I transcribed a note for Sara to Kaiser to that effect. From Sara, basically saying she's ready to go. Help her family get her home. Thanks for saving her. Its time for her to go have a life.

We also talked about ways to make it easier to start talking to her friends again. She doesn't know what to say after all this time - where to start - are they even still there for her. She's afraid she's lost a few, because of how overwhelming this can be for anybody. She knows it may happen, but we have to get talking with them for her to find out. We came upon the fact that it would be easiest for her to answer questions first.

So, if anybody has questions for Sara, post them here and I'll ask her and post her responses. Or you can email me directly, or Daniel.

Then we'll get her emailing back and forth with her friends, questions, then whereever the interaction takes you guys. We won't post her communication device email out here in public, until she's fully ready.