Well, Tom is even better this evening. He received 2 units of blood today which helped his color among other things. He is more alert - of course his loyal friend Dave came by and that helps a LOT! We went for a pre-dinner walk "around the hospital hallway block" so he's had a little exercise. Since I did not make my class at the Y this morning, I have searched and found a non-creepy stairway. That's the good news. The bad news (sort of) is that Tom is on the 8th floor. Other than when I am hauling stuff in or out, I have taken the stairs. The only place I really go is the cafeteria which is on the first floor but at least it's something!!
The on-call PCP seems to think that the infection source is the bacteria that they found in the tests. It is a bacteria that can develop when a mass dose of antibiotics has been given and killed all of the good bacteria. Often it does not show up for several weeks after the meds are received. So, he's thinking that all of the antibiotics Tom received in the second hospital stay might have killed enough good bacteria to allow this bad bacteria to grow. They have stopped all IV antibiotics. I asked the doc how we would know when the infection was gone - he said it would go away in a couple of weeks. I asked him if Tom had to stay in the hospital that long, he said no. I kind of think he will be here at least until mid-week. His gastro doc is not on-call this weekend so we'll see what his thoughts are on Monday. If there are tests he wants to run, I would imagine those could be done while Tom is here. Of course, then we need to wait on the results of those tests and then wait for the doctor to decide treatment and then wait on that treatment . . . results . . . on and on it goes. Tom is a little swollen so he received one dose of lasix today. He is on a low sodium diet too. This is the third "diet" he has been on. We have no idea what he can/should eat and what he can't. I need to be sure to ask the docs what his diet should be when we leave - I want to be sure we're doing everything we can to address Tom's "delicate condition".
I went home for a little while today to get some laundry done and play with the puppies. I will stay at home tomorrow night so will be back and forth tomorrow. Tom gets "home sheets" but we only have one twin set so I need to wash those and bring them back. He does not like hospital sheets. He also has home blankets, home pillows, home cups and we provide our own soda. I even brought him some fruit but that's because I didn't want to throw it away. It's pretty bad when you are pre-packed for a hospital stay.
I don't know that we'll get much new info tomorrow. They don't run many lab tests over the weekend so depending on what the doc orders, we may just "stay the course".
Hope you all have a wonderful Saturday night and a blessed Sunday!
No comments:
Post a Comment