A Bug

Joe gave us all quite a scare late yesterday afternoon when a sudden onset of pain in his abdomen overtook him. Draining a liter of fluid out of his belly catheter usually relieves the pressure, but in this case his blood sugar and blood pressure dropped to an alarming rate. The nurses immediately gave him saline into his port line, juice and sugar water. 20 minutes later his sugar and blood pressure levels were stable and they moved him to x-ray to see what was going on in the abdomen. The doctors were pleased that they found no tumors, blockages or tears in his abdomen, colon or stomach but were still confused as to what caused the sudden onset of excrutiating pain. His abdomen was also very distended, even after the draining, which is unusual. The nurses took blood from all three of his ports for testing. They attempted to get a clean sample of blood from his arm but after 4 nurses were unsuccessful, thankfully, they left him alone. They took a sample of the ascities and his urine for testing. Apparently he has an infection in his abdominal area, most likely from the tube in his belly or the ascities that resides in this area. He is on hourly morphine shots to control the pain. It took about 12 hours to stabilize him and get the pain under control. The doctors are treating him with both IV antibiotics as well as antibiotics in his abdominal catheter - which causes him pain as they flush through it. He is weak. The docs did order his TPN last night so he is getting the nutrition and fluids he needs but his kidney and bowel functions are less than stellar. Preliminary reports on his labs show that his white cell count is still very low causing his body to not have anything to fight off bacteria. The good news is that they believe that the bacteria is 'common' and he can be treated with an IV antibiotic.

It is so hard to see a loved one suffer and be in such pain for so long. Gina was wonderful - she remained calm and stayed right with him, answering the doctor's questions as they all piled into the room to determine what had gone wrong when finally things were going so right. Maureen, Gina and Pat stayed with us until 9, then I stayed through the night. About 3 am he finally was able to rest comfortably. This morning Dr Kohli and the other team of doctors will be in to hopefully pinpoint the bug that bit him so severely and treat it effectively.

One step forward, three steps backwards. My best estimate is that he'll be in the hospital until at least Monday.