Not-So-Good Friday
Dad was having a great day on Friday from all accounts--he was even up in his chair for a full three hours! Mom said he had been breathing somewhat shallowly, though, and just after he got back into bed, he vomited copiously. The danger with vomiting, of course, is the risk of aspirating some of the vomit and it appears that he did so yesterday. His oxygen levels were quite bad yesterday afternoon and evening--they had him on an oxygen mask and were giving him some bronchiodilator treatments to help that. He continued to vomit (with some blood in the vomit) and have really bad diarrhea, but the initial chest x-ray they did came back clear (although the nurses told us that it could be deceiving since it had been done so soon after he vomited)
This morning, things were looking a bit better early on--they had gotten the vomiting under control, at least, and his oxygen levels were better. But then his blood pressure plummeted, down to 80-something over 40-something. They decided at that point to move him to CCU because they wanted to give him some medications that might affect his heart and they wanted to be able to monitor him better. In the meantime, some bloodwork they did showed that his blood protein levels were elevated, indicating that he might be digesting his own blood (is that possible? I hope I'm reporting this correctly.). His cardiologist says that he may well have a stomach ulcer, quite common in long-term hospital patients. So now they are giving him blood to help that, along with fluids and other medications to help his blood pressure.
Needless to say, we're all worried sick. This may just be a minor setback but has the potential to be quite dangerous as well, especially with the risk of really bad pneumonia from aspirating vomit. The timing couldn't be worse, either--just yesterday he had been cleared for rehab and accepted by a local facility (assuming a bed was available, that is) after a week of amazingly good progress. Why does this keep happening?
Editing to add: First, if you haven't, you should read Amy's comment to this post for a mid-afternoon update. I'm editing this at 10:30 tonight to report that they did an abdominal x-ray that seemed to show that his J-tube has gotten twisted around somehow and is pointing the wrong way--pumping stuff up into his stomach instead of down into his intestine. This is an unoffical report from the resident this evening and not from a GI doctor, so I'm not sure how accurate it is. But it would certainly explain much of what's happening. No word on what they can/should do to fix the problem, but I know Mom is unwilling to do much of anything with that damn tube without Dr. Okolo around and without considering all of the options and not just the most common option.
This morning, things were looking a bit better early on--they had gotten the vomiting under control, at least, and his oxygen levels were better. But then his blood pressure plummeted, down to 80-something over 40-something. They decided at that point to move him to CCU because they wanted to give him some medications that might affect his heart and they wanted to be able to monitor him better. In the meantime, some bloodwork they did showed that his blood protein levels were elevated, indicating that he might be digesting his own blood (is that possible? I hope I'm reporting this correctly.). His cardiologist says that he may well have a stomach ulcer, quite common in long-term hospital patients. So now they are giving him blood to help that, along with fluids and other medications to help his blood pressure.
Needless to say, we're all worried sick. This may just be a minor setback but has the potential to be quite dangerous as well, especially with the risk of really bad pneumonia from aspirating vomit. The timing couldn't be worse, either--just yesterday he had been cleared for rehab and accepted by a local facility (assuming a bed was available, that is) after a week of amazingly good progress. Why does this keep happening?
Editing to add: First, if you haven't, you should read Amy's comment to this post for a mid-afternoon update. I'm editing this at 10:30 tonight to report that they did an abdominal x-ray that seemed to show that his J-tube has gotten twisted around somehow and is pointing the wrong way--pumping stuff up into his stomach instead of down into his intestine. This is an unoffical report from the resident this evening and not from a GI doctor, so I'm not sure how accurate it is. But it would certainly explain much of what's happening. No word on what they can/should do to fix the problem, but I know Mom is unwilling to do much of anything with that damn tube without Dr. Okolo around and without considering all of the options and not just the most common option.
posted by Sarah @ 1:09 PM
1 Comments:
At 7:38 PM,
Amy said…
His second x-ray also came back clear - which indicates that he probably did NOT aspirate any of the vomit. That is good news because it reduces his risk of pneumonia. Whew... He is still rough though. While Sarah was there his blood pressure was being jumpy - but seemed to stabalize by the time she left - but was still lower than it should be. I don't know what is going on - none of us really do. It is frustrating for ALL of us. We all suspect that he has a stomach virus that was working its way through all of us - but being that he is so weak, it is affecting him more dramatically than it did us. The staff won't agree or disagree with our non-professional assessment. They don't know what is causing his current problems either. It just seems to be par for his course.
As Sarah said - Friday day - up until about 3:00 was going so well. He supervised Katie and I playing Cribbage (I won) and then played a full game with me. I skunked him - so maybe he was just really mad at me... 8-b We are hopeful that this is just a minor set back. What an upsetting one though after he was doing so well!
Happy Easter all!
Amy
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