congestive heart failure in elderly woman

[margieippc]

My 82 yr old grandmother was rushed to er room 22 days ago - she was in a nursing home because of diabetes which will go from 40 to 500 in an instant and the beginning stages of dementia. She had a heart attack in the ambulance and it took 2 mins to revive her. She stayed in ICU on a ventilator for 11 days. During that time she had a chest tube put into her left lung for a hole that showed up and fluid retention. She had congestive heart failure with fluid retention in arma and legs and both lungs. She had pneumonia, rsv and mersa in her kidneys and lungs. She was malnurioushed and the diabetes was acting up. She ended up with a thorancentesis on her right lung which removed 2 ltrs of fluid. Now we are on day 23 and she is in ltac. Still has chest tube and is on high levels of oxygen, iv meds. She had a thoracentesis on the right lung  again 1/2 a week ago. She had 50 % of fluid removed, about 1 1/2 ltr, they wanted to add chest tube to the right side but I asked them to hold off. . Now her urine and stool is dark colors. Her skin around middle is turning yellow. She kept pulling feeding tube out so she is on nectar and pureed food. She has been alert and seems improved at times but then she started sleeping most of the time. She has been put on mild dose of zanax for anxiety. The left lung is still leaking pretty steady and 9 boxes have now been filled up. What do we expect is going on and what kind of prognosis am I looking at. ?
For 2 weeks I just knew she was gone any minute, now I do not know. Any views on this would be helpful.
Oh legs and arms has gone down, now just appears  to be lungs we are the most worried about.

[kenkeith]

Sorry to hear the condition of your grandmother.  It appears the heart is weak and unable to pump the blood received from the lungs into circulation.  The blood backs up into the lungs and peripherals and fluid leak into the tissues.

If the heart's contraction can be improved, and lower the resistance the heart pumps against i.e.lung edema, there cannot not be much improvement.  The heart well continued to be overworked progressively. Removal of fliuds reduces the workload of the heart but may not have any significance as a remedy to the heart problem and pneumonia.