Thursday, July 24, 2008

Going to Family House tomorrow

They are telling me he can go home tomorrow. They gave me a wound care lesson - home health will show me again and I will change the dressings in front of them - before I do it myself. He is still so very weak I can't believe that he can leave, but Dr. Gamblin says he will go to Family House, and we will see him on Monday (I THINK to take out stitches, and to discuss everything), and we can come home for two weeks, coming back them for follow-up. He wants him to begin chemo again late next week, but we are thinking he is too weak to begin treatments. Seems pretty drastic and sudden to me, but - the hospital is no place to be when you are sick, and - as John Wayne - said "Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway".

I am blogging from the hospital, so I was able to upload some pictures from my laptop. I wrote about the setup here, and wanted to shown you - you can't really see the enorminity of this place from those pictures, but - you can catch a glimpse.

Blood sugar was down to 127 today - he should NOT need insulin when we leave here (didn't affect the pancreas) - this all resulted from the liver surgery. They also THINK the pleural effusion was a result of the surgery - could be combined with the weakening from the pulmonary embolism. He is no longer on any antobiotics - which seems crazy to me - but - what do I know!
He has dilaudid for pain (I spelled it wrong the other day.

My biggest worry is he is not eating - can't get it down. That is a lot of why he is so weak, I am sure. Our long-time friend Roberta, who is a retired nurse, mailed me some great suggestions for feeding him in this condition, and I am going to stock up tonight. In the meantime, he is taking the boost. Joe and Carolyn sent us a huge basket of organic goodies - fruit, cheese and crackers, nuts, and he was most interested in organic green tea flavored like root beer that came with it - we are chilling it now - he will drink it later. Thank you - actually, I ate the salami and cheese for lunch!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Joyce, Sorta reminds you of the commercial of the guy sitting at his kitchen table with a knife in his hand, talking to his surgeon on the phone about how to do the operation and saying, "Shouldn't you be doing this?" I know the feeling of utter panic at being told I can take home a man who looks like death warmed over! Hang in there. Somehow they manage to recuperate much faster once you're responsible for them!

You guys will do fine. Look how many people are praying for both of you every day.

Alex's birthday - slide show