November French Hospital 2011

Grateful to be home resting now after a short stay at French Hospital for a urinary tract infection (UTI). Symptoms came on fast and fierce, late at night, right to level excruciating when Loren drove me to French Hospital ER. He handles these things quite well, fine upstanding Englishman that he is. I do my part, suffering loudly and adding my wish that he run every red light after a quick pause of the car.   He calmly states we will be there soon. I was in shaking chills and fever once there. The ER doctor found nothing right off but ran antibiotics in and gave me Tylenol. I started to feel better. Blood tests came back normal but they wanted me overnight due to the fever and the fact that I am immune-suppressed and thus susceptible to sepsis. I just don’t have the white cells running around like a normal person and the battle of infection can get out of control.  I see this better in hindsight.  I view hospitals as risky, bacteria everywhere.  They see the risk worth taking:  IV delivery of an antibiotic, controlling a fever (they would take blankets off, get me up, make me breathe more deeply allowing cooler air to lower body temp.) IV drugs for nausea and better odds of winning an infection battle over something they were unable to pin down right away.

I was rolled to my hospital room about 4 a.m. As Loren left  I encouraged his careful drive home and in particular to watch for animals on the road. He reminded me that I was not so enamoured of the animals when we drove in.

More blood tests showed my creatinine back to normal (1.2 back to 1.1) and another night there with fluctuating temperature .  The urine culture test revealed a bacteria strain and the doctor felt the antibiotic choice (Ceftin) was a good one.  Dr. Wolfe had been in to see me the previous night and said it was just a wait and see what grew out in the culture.  He ordered a residual bladder ultrasound.  Patient empties their bladder and the ultrasound looks to see if urine remains and how much.  As we age or whatever, these things empty less well apparently.  My score was low, not bad, but any residual urine can of course lead to UTIs.  I have had 2 other UTIs in my life, so not a common thing for me and never previously at stage excruciating.

Time to send this out as I know my wonderful supportive friends may be checking in to see the state of things.

Happy Thanksgiving all!  I’ll be feasting and enjoying huge servings of gratitude that I am home and healthy and no animals were harmed in the process.

February 2011

Once again the monthly blood test results are stellar.  I know how I feel when I go for the test, or how it was the day before, and it was not so great this time.  Just proves the body’s ability to remain stable no matter what the weather, no matter what the pain pill count.  My local nephrologist says I can now wait until April for the next test.

Feeling good now.  Returning to work this week:  the real test of how much stamina I’ve built up.  This 2nd hernia surgery has required more down time.  The less I did the less pain I felt later in the day.  I talked with one very active person who had the mesh put in and it was a year before he stopped feeling it in there.  So all in good time.  No need to push the limits.

We want to wish each other freedom from forgetfulness.  But when it comes to surgeries, I wish you all any forgetfulness you can find.  Just remember the silver linings.

January 2011

Happy New Year.  Big round of applause to Loren for posting so well and often.  Bless all of you for the support, caring, kind words and keeping us in your thoughts.  And huge thanks to Nan for spending the holidays with us through yet more uncharted waters.

My plan is to take the lead from this unfazed healthy kidney and just keep on going no matter what the bumps in the road.  I have this bullet proof abdominal bionic mesh to take me the distance.  Three weeks of healing behind me now and each day brings more.  The tough love recovery walking has commenced and thank goodness for pain pills.  I’m doing well, all things considered.

My latest blood test was all normal.  Creatinine at 1.17, really good.  It had been 1.3 in the hospital, probably due to low fluid intake.  With the immunosuppression they said my healing would be slower than most people.  And as Loren had to remind me, with the big piece of mesh laid in, my pain would be higher.  The fascia layer had to be cut back more than expected, requiring the mesh.  Based on my bruising the square measures about 4×5 inches.  I think we are finito with that, not writing the book on hernial surgery.  No, it is straight on to chocolate from here, not even stopping for the 4 or 5 stages of grief.

Back to reclining position now……… not ready for sitting at the computer yet and can stand only for so long……

All mostly quiet on the home front.

The latest from T st.  Patience and fortitude seem to be the words of the day.   While on one hand not much is happening, on the other , not much is happening.   Gayle is as comfortable as we can get her.  Which is to say not much.  The pain and discomfort are lingering on longer than we had hoped, as Dr. Hassoun had said they would.  There is indeed progress, each day it seems that Gayle moves a little bit easier and her walking is a little bit longer, but as the days pass the progress seems slow.  I guess that is where the patience part comes in.  Gayle is confined to the upstairs and tries to pretend the walk from the bedroom, past the bathroom and out to the couch and back is somehow new and exciting.  On the up side, it has become more of a walk and less the geisha shuffle of before.  Gayle is experienced in dealing with the discomforts of abdominal surgery, but I know that constantly being carefull of how you move, eat , rise, sit, lie, walk or even breathe is wearing.  And that is where the fortitude comes in.  She is good at both, and if occasionally I pull back with less than five fingers, tis a small and passing thing.  The take away is that she really is getting better although we are rescheduling the ski trip for maybe March.   Loren.

Home again.

Whew, been moving at Mach 5 all day it seems.  The really, really good news is that we are home.  Gayle has had her first shower in four days and is now lying down, trying to be calm and quiet and get her nerves and tummy settled down.   She was looking good and feeling good when I first showed up in good ‘ol 613b this morning, but the docs (of which there are a multitude) had already been through and had provisionally greenlighted her release.  Shortly after I arrived, Dr. Katznelson,(the final say) showed, everybody confabbed and the race was on.  It was recommended that we try straight for home, skip the hotel and so it was.  I did the crazed madman routine running back to the hotel, packing, checking out, everything in car, screaming up to the hotel,—– and wait- paper work-and wait- run for prescription, -and wait- for the wheel chair  etc.  But we were on the road by two and left only a few teeth marks in the door jam.   Meds, Gayle’s stiff upper lip and a heavy foot got us home a bit after six.  In a bit we will see if some scrambled eggs will go down. And stay.    Glad to be home, glad to have her down, and really glad to be back with my Mac rather than that +&*%$#@ netbook.

Once again, and I can’t say this often enough.  Thank everyone for the prayers and vibes.  It helps ever so much.  And just so the apology is on public record, Nan I’m sorry I was short on the phone, Gayle was coming out of the shower.  Thanks again all, I really hope we don’t do this anymore.     Loren.

update, for 26th.

Had to stop and think what day this was.   News is that Gayle is rebounding very well.  Nausea been absent since this morning and while going for walks can still get the “ow” going a bit, lying down is fairly comfortable, except, she has been laying down for so darn long that other parts are starting to complain.  Small potatoes in the grand scheme.  Firm information is sometimes hard to come by but  the general assumption is that we will be discharged tomorrow.  A night in the hotel then we face the ride home.   Gayle’s first shift night nurse, a stethoscope wielding gem, pronounced her gut sounds as “very active”.  See what the Docs say tomorrow.

Serendipity showed up in the form of Lisa and Ric this afternoon.  Wow, so great to see them!  They were also gracious enough to solve Nan’s travel issues by agreeing to take her home with them.  Too cool for words.  We will miss her greatly(speaking nurse is a bit like knowing parseltongue). Can hardly wait to hit Morro Bay and home.       Loren.

Another day, another challange

Well, a bit of a stormy night in Gastrointestinalville.   Miss G always seems to save the fun stuff for the middle of the night.  She did have a BM, hooray!  but then had, from all reports ,a terrible bout with gas.  This morning she was. as Frodo said to Sam, “feeling a bit thinner today”  So she is back on some IV’s, struggling to keep drinking and eating.  On the positive note, the docs took off her dressing as well as this “binder” device she was wearing. (its an approx 12″ tall elastic band they had cinched around her torso)  and she says that it is ever so much more comfortable with out it.  (her incision area looked good and they have left the dressing off)  Currently she is concentrating on being still and centered and being patient with my constantly cawing “drink more, drink more”.  Docs are still saying probably monday for discharge. Regardless we will stay at least another day in the hotel before heading home.

Our biggest loss of the moment;  our faithful companion, sherpa and local translator, Nan has gone down with some sort of head cold/headache thing.  She does not want to come near Gayle and has stayed at the hotel.  Currently she is investigating ways of getting home as we came up in one car.  Miss her greatly already.

As always, thanks for  the good wishes.   More as it happens.  Loren.

Quest for movement.

Gayle can move everything now but what she most wants to.  She gets up for the bathroom on her own and does a cute little shuffle down the hall.  I tell her she looks like a Geisha, what with her feet doing this little minimal movement shuffle while keeping her head down.  It hurts the least that way.  It’s not easy doing what she is doing.  She is handling the pain pretty darn well, only going on the meds a couple of times today.  Her wound drain was removed today– she says the tape was the worst part.  Also had a few difficulties with the IV tubes.  After they finally determined that she had more than necessary, they took one out, only to have the other pack up which turned her hand puffy and red.  Had to take that out and poke her again for another.  The staff is kind and try to be as gentle as they can but she is still looking pretty bruised up.  But spirits are high.  If they were grading on attitude she would have been out days ago. 

Personally I’ve never thought too much of hospitals, but if you gotta,the transplant floors at CPMC are pretty good.  despite the intensely busy, chaotic mess we first dropped into out of surgery I’m pretty pleased with the staff.  Attentive, professional, kind and caring.  And in my role as “helicopter husband” I’m a tough sell.

One last thing.  Kudos to the Kidney!  Through all the travails, all the slicing and dicing, it just keeps pumping merrily along.  Other than the mandatory stops every hour when we are driving, its damn fine. Loren.

It’s a good morning.

Ah, the difference a morning can make, as Nan and I came in this morning we were greeted with Gayle’s sweet smile.  Still a bit woozy, but had been able to get up and down into the bathroom and even ventured a bit of juice this morning.  Great to see.  It will be even nicer  to get some of this plumbing off of her.  (she has IVs in each arm-4 ports total and poke marks seemingly everywhere.)  It’s still a bit iffy keeping things down and she is still tired ,but ever so much better. 

It was a bit surreal coming up Fillmore st. with Nan this morning.  Streets virtually deserted(some dog walkers  though) and nothing at all open.  OMG, no coffee!  fortunately, we stumbled (literally) on a Coffee Bean open.  And busy, what were they thinking? This city absolutely runs on coffee shops.  There  are, by actual count, seven within a block or so of the hospital.  On one street!  So disaster was averted and I’m told the rest of the caffeine emporiums will be open by eight.  whew.

 To recap, much better and on the way to good, They may remove her drain today, depends on Dr. H.  Probably will not release her till tomorrow. (I’m thinking of buying stock in the Kabuki) Unsure when we will be heading home.  Day to Day. Send good thoughts to Gayle.  All she wants for Christmas is a bowel movement.   Ta.  Loren.

Dejha vue all over again

Well, we have all done this too many times.  At night, in the hotel. trying to relate Gayle’s day.  The short version is that she has been spending a lot of time with her old friend Mr. Nausea, and he brought his buddy Abdominal Pain with him.  A rocky morning ,trying to get meds down and keep them there.  The medical staff, in trying to cope with that gave her an anti-nausea  med they usually don’t called compazine(spelling?). It worked but we spent most of the rest of our time trying to keep her awake and moving.  Gayle is very aware of the need to get up and  to try to get her gut working so she worked at doing that.  She also deliberately went most of the day without pain meds, as they tend to keep your abdominals  asleep, which  the CPMC people liked  but it’s a tough go.  She also had to fight through the compazine which  made her very sleepy–in between nausea bouts.  So most of the day was on her back, but the end of the day had her feeling a bit better, holding meds down and ready for the night.  I’m also pleased to say that her night nurse (Curtis) appears to  be excellent.

On that note I would also have to say Dr. Hassoun has been super too.  When he came by on rounds at midday, Nan and I missed him.  We had taken a walk because they told us  that he was tied up with a liver transplant.  When we came back and found that we had missed him we expressed our disappointment, but the “charge nurse” found him and he came back just to talk to us and Gayle again.  He says he is very pleased with the results of the surgery and says to be patient with the pace of recovery.  Trying, but I know Gayle is really so very tired of it all-again.  But if she can, I can too.  So trying to relax and look forward to tomorrow.   After all its Christmas!   Which I hope finds everyone well.  Again, I want to express my appreciation for the concern and good thoughts that so many of you have been expressing.  Gayle and I can feel the good will and are  the better for it.  Thank you so very much.  Loren.