Ritka and Heat Stroke 18 Aug
I talked to the resident assigned to Ritka, Julien Guillaumin at 10:30 on Friday 18 August. Her platelets were 22,000. However I’ve been told that the margin for error is such that this might not indicate that platelets
are really going up. There is that much error in the tests. The blood in her eyes is beginning to clear up. She vomited another 2 or 3 times since 5 pm yesterday. She has a urinary catheter now – good so she does not pee on herself and they can monitor urine output. Overall, he thought she was a tad better than yesterday.
Thanks for everyone’s thoughts and prayers. I appreciate the nice notes.
I was able to have two short visits with Ritka on Friday 18 August mid afternoon and early evening. The blood in her iris is draining so her eyes are no longer bright red. They took her to opthamology to have her eyes checked. She shows inflammation, but her pressure is normal – so the high blood pressure did not start any glaucoma type problems. She was willing to walk to opthamology pulling in front down the hall. Late afternoon on the 17th she could barely walk so that was good.
When I visited she wanted to rest her head against me and be petted. When I left at the end of the first visit, she gave me the “look” that said – don’t leave me. The second visit I did a better job of easing away and got away while she was sleeping. For the weekend she has Laura Whitehead as her student. Julian Guillaumin (her resident from France) has been consulting with Dr. Smart (from Austrailia) so Ritka has a nice international team working for her.
