Vital stats and visits

Sunday 29 April afternoon


On the face of it she is not doing badly, even if outward appearances deceive. Her pulse was 84, her pressure 9 over 4 (not abnormal for Lara) and her saturation 98%. No fever. She is still on 8 or 9 liters of oxygen per minute.

Yesterday she was having problems breathing. This was due to inadvertent behavior (someone planted a heavy heel on her oxygen tube, while someone else closed the door and squeezed the line shut). Structurally however, as we learned from a technician we had summoned to inspect the set-up, there was something wrong. The oxygen concentrator takes oxygen from the air in the house, filters it, concentrates it and pumps it to the face-mask of the patient. Oxygen from a bottle is 100% pure. But oxygen from a concentrator is maybe 91%. So 9 liters per minute is not the same; it depends where it comes from.

The other problem is that we had placed the machine in the hallway to spare Lara the constant drone. As a result there is a 12 meter long clear plastic tube connecting the machine to the mask, with an attendant loss of oxygen at every curl. By the time it reaches Lara, oxygen starting a 9 liters a minute has dwindled to 5 or 6 liters by the time it gets to her.

So then we rolled the machine from the hallway into the living room and put it next to the bed, and connected a six meter long tube. Also we gave her a new mask. And then she was happy.

This morning Lara received a call from Tia Higano, an old old friend of hers she hadn't spoken with since they were both around 14 years old. Tia has been a valuable intermediary between doctors at Saint Luke's in Brussels and the Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle where Tia is a Director.

The girls in the house had connived to send me out to the gym this morning and so I did, dutifully. Meanwhile my son Bouke had arrived for a surprise visit. He showed some videos on his cell phone of his daughter, Madelief, walking about the house tentatively. Lara thoroughly enjoyed it.

Janis left for California this morning and gave us an early call before turning in her local cell phone. Elisabetta and Liliana are flying home tomorrow morning Monday. They are making sure there will be enough food in the house for both of us.