How fast things can change! Thursday I was so pleased with how things were going. Saturday my Mother and and sister, Peg, came to visit Jon. He was sleeping when they got there and seemed sleepy after about an hour so they said their goodbyes.
Sunday, Barb and her dad and Greg and I went up to visit. I noticed his urine was getting dark again and even had a few “floaters” in it. He assured me he was getting enough fluids and that the staff thought so, too--between the liquids with meds, his drinks at mealtime and whatever drinks he either got from the Camelbak or he asked them for.
Monday, I had a meeting in Perrysburg, about 20 minutes away from the Liberty Nursing Center so I decided to make a quick run his way to see how things were going. Angelique and Jeff had stopped by on their way home from a trip to New York. I was mortified at the color and the amount of cloudiness (4 inches or so) in the tube. I just lifted the foley bag to show it to him and he snapped at me-- so I left. Before leaving the building I asked one of the staff to check on him after his company left and see how he was doing. I reminded her that the infection he had never really goes away it just needs to be under control and he had gone very quickly from being incoherent to just plain out of it!
I really expected to receive a call during the night so I didn’t sleep well Monday night. I did call though in the morning to see how he was and if they were keeping track of his output. While the gal was searching for that info I explained why I was concerned and when I got to the 4 condensed inches of cloudiness she gasped. She said that they could probably use extra fluid when they flushed the feeding tube to get more liquids in him and I agreed it would be a good idea. Ten minutes later she called and said that St. V’s had discontinued the cranberry capsules and she could start those up again and I thought that would be a good idea, too.
Today, actually yesterday but to be exact Wednesday, Carol and I stopped by for a quick visit. As I was parking in their lot I got a call from Liberty saying he had gone to the hospital for an appointment with his wound care doctor and then commented about how his stomach had gotten bigger. They took his blood pressure and it was low enough they agreed with him that he needed to go to the emergency room, again!
So, off we went to St.V’s. When we got there they had already taken 5 vials of blood, 2 samples of urine (very red), then he had x-rays of his stomach and chest followed by a CAT scan of his tummy. He had 2 IVs put in; one for 2 antibiotics (cipro and cefetime) and another for something to help with his blood pressure. At that time it was pretty obvious he was going to be admitted and probably to ICU.
An ICU doc explained that while he was admitted to the ICU he would not be under the care of that staff since he was not in quite the critical condition he was in 2 weeks ago. Instead he would be under the care of the infectious disease staff. A while later when we were allowed to see him the nurse sounded like he was indeed back under the critical care staff’s care since his blood pressure had not responded like they anticipated. His infection is systemic or septis meaning it is through all his body. He would need another central IV line like he had last time and probably in the neck again...something that Jon was very unhappy about. I imagine that any movement of the head irritates the area around it. Last week I had kidded him saying that the marks left on his neck made it look like a very thirsty vampire had attacked him!
Just before we left the results of the blood test had come back. His white blood count is 26000--two weeks ago when he was there it was 18000! The blood pressure numbers are 82/37. However, there is another number that goes with that that neither Carol nor I understood and that was 51. While we were there it dropped to 48 and what they were aiming for was to get it up above 60! That’s what brought on the central line--the medicine will be levophed.
That’s about it for now--time to hit the pillow. The chair has made its way to Toledo, the patient care meeting is still on for tomorrow at 1 and the place in Napoleon says they will take him once he gets into a stable condition. Neither Napoleon or Defiance hospitals have an intensive care unit so he would have to be taken to Toledo anyway if another problem developed.
Take care...
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