DAY 44: Better

Yesterday, the rounds doctors told us that Mom's chances were slightly less than 50/50. Later, however, I found Dr. Offner and he disagreed, concluding that he expects her to fully recover. He said that putting odds on it is a strange thing anyway, because she either lives or she doesn't. In his opinion, she will live.

Here's how it went.

The first doctor said that a person with ARDS has a 30-40% chance of dying. Later, Dr. Hodgin said, true, however that statistic includes children, who survive more often than adults, so for a person in Mom's position the odds are more like 50-60%. That's what we'd heard at the time of yesterday's blog update and when I made the phone calls to family.

When I spoke with Dr. Offner, he explained that both of those ways of looking at it are too simplistic. In fact, people who die from ARDS almost never die because of oxygenation, which is Mom's challenge. They die from multiple organ failure or sepsis, neither of which Mom has. So, in his opinion, the only thing ahead of Mom is a very long road to recovery. He does expect her to recover, though.

Today, at morning rounds, I hope to get a clearer picture than we got yesterday.