Yet another setback

Things were looking great for Dad early this week. First the success at getting his metoprolo through the G tube, then they easily got him off the Foley catheter. The hospital had warned us that his muscular control might not be the best so he might need to be re-toilet trained, but in that they turned out to be wrong.

But then two days ago, his J tube developed a blockage. At first we thought (based on what the nurse said) that the hospital had messed up and gave him his medication through the wrong tube, but it turns out that the tube had a kink in it. After debating a bit (and being unsuccessful at unkinking the tube) they decided to try giving him his food as well as his medications through the G tube (you all have this straight yet? G tube goes to the stomach and is attached to a pump so that his stomach doesn't become overly full and cause the nausea and vomiting that has plagued Dad since he got out of CICU; medications are given through this tube, and the pump turned off for a while after so that he can absorb the medications. J tube goes directly to his intestine and that's what he gets food through). They started off slowly and all went well for a while, until they put in a new tube yesterday after the old one fell out during a bath. Unfortunately, he almost immediately started leaking around the new tube and didn't stop. Stomach acid all over his abdomen--very painful and messy--plus he's off nutrition again until they can figure out why this is happening and get it to stop.

They took him down for an x-ray in the night to try to figure out the problem, but once they had him there, they realized they needed a doctor to oversee the process. So they will try again this morning. Poor man has had no food for at least a day, acid leaking all over him, and they they disrupt what little sleep he could manage by taking him on a useless trip to get an x-ray. To make matters worse, he's on his own today since we're getting snow and Mom is concerned she might get stuck on the roads (a legitimate concern with the hills she has to navigate to get home) so there is no one there to knock heads together to get action. Katie says she's going to try to make the trip now before the roads get too bad, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that she gets there safely.

I hope they figure this one out soon so we can get him out of the hospital! We're so frustrated--on Monday, he was looking great, agreed that he felt and sounded stronger, and seemed really optimistic, and now this.

Editing to add.......
This afternoon, they got the leaking stopped. As I understand it, there is a disk around the stoma and they had been taping under this disk. One of the doctors instead taped him up on top of the disk really thoroughly and as of now, it's containing the leaking. Dad says he had a pretty good day, other than that. They had him up in a chair for a while and were planning to get some nutrition in him so it looks as if everything is back to where we were before!