Saturday 3/14

Sorry, I was too tired to update Friday night.  He was up in the chair twice on Friday, but his blood pressure was so low (90/61), that they had to wait a couple hours before they got him up the second time.  I asked if he was getting enough fluids, and they said he was only getting what was in the tube feeding, and a little that they put in the stomach tube with his Atavan every six hours.  I said that at St. V.'s he had been getting water in the stomach tube every two hours after they took him off IV fluids.  The nurse said she had not seen an order for that.  I said perhaps is blood pressure was low because he needed more water.

I was already being a pain in the butt, so I went out to the nurse at the station and asked about the reason they had changed his anti-depressant from the one he's been on for 15 years, and she could not give me a good reason... said maybe they couldn't get it in liquid form. I explained that his psychiatrist that he's been with for about 5 years had said she would get him the liquid form if they couldn't, and I would bring it up.  She had also said they could open the capsule and mix it with juice to put it in his stomach tube. (She's the one who encouraged me to ask for a reason.) The nurse called the pharmacy, and they said yes, they could do that.  I also wanted to know if he was being treated for the thrush infection in his mouth, and the nurse said no.  So I said why not?  How is it going to get cleared up for him to be able to drink water, if he's not getting medicine for it?  At that point, she called the doctor.  He said to start a statin for the thrush and start him back on his regular anti-depressant.  They started both last night.  I'm sure they love me up there now!  But today, he had a bag of water going through the stomach tube at intervals, too.

Today was another kind of rough day for Ron.  He had a sharp pain in his right chest and going up over his right shoulder starting at about 6:30 this morning.  They brought in the EKG machine and checked his heart, and it was OK.  They decided he must have pulled a muscle from coughing.  Then a klutzy nurse knocked his DVD player off his tray table onto the floor, twice.  (He had a poor nurse all day.)  When I got there this afternoon, he was still in pain, and they had apparently not given him anything for it. 

This evening, he felt like he was not getting enough air, and was working really hard to breathe.  His respirations were over 30.  He was really starting to get sweaty from working so hard.  The RT came in and changed the wave setting on the machine to try to help him breathe more easily.  He started having a sort of panic/anxiety attack, and his back got all tense.  The more he felt like he couldn't breathe, the more he tensed up, and was breathing too fast.  The nurse came in and gave him his Atavan.  He tried to relax and concentrate on breathing slower, and eventually calmed down.  Then his back hurt as bad as his right shoulder!  Dr. Tita (one of his pulmonologists from St. V's) came in and checked on him at about 7:00 pm and ordered Percocet for the pain.  He also ordered his regular Xanax to help him relax and be able to sleep.

Hopefully, tomorrow will be a better day...  Everyone has said to expect, "Two steps forward, one step back."

Thanks for all the prayers and good thoughts!

Love,
EJ