He had a pretty good night's sleep last night- when I got here this morning he was dozing while watching ESPN (which is a great step!) and he's dozed most of the last hour. His numbers after dialyzing yesterday are better- sodium, phosphorus, potassium and creatinine are all down and all but creatinine is within normal range (although his normal range for creatinine is way above normal for most people). His pain has been much more manageable today- the nurse came in to give him his next dose and Bryce didn't need it yet so we held off a little while. Also good. Vascular surgeon came and checked his fistula, said it looks good and all is well there. He has been complaining of a lot of pain in his left hip so they've ordered a CT scan for sometime today to make sure that's okay. He's eating a little jello and juice. He stood up for a minute with physical therapy this morning and they're hoping he can do that again this afternoon when they come back. They'll take more blood cultures today to see if the bacteria in his blood is coming down and responding to treatment. His fever has come down a lot to, just at 100 (with the help of Tylenol). All good things, moving in the right direction. I think I can safely say we're past the worst of it. Still think it'll be at least a couple days before he comes home but him being comfortable enough to sleep is huge, he can't heal if he can't rest! Love you all! We're in good hands.
Wednesday evening:
Doc came in- said they looked at his hip CT a little closer and they saw some inflammation in there. They don't know if it's secondary because of the sepsis or if it's some arthritis. He said if it's some arthritis it could have gone septic and been the cause of this episode; the only way to know is to go in with a needle and get some fluid from in there (similar to a biopsy) and test it for the bacteria. They'll do that tomorrow at some point, he is scheduled for dialysis tomorrow at 8AM.
He has slept the whole afternoon (except for his CT and PT) and just woke up much more awake and alert. He said "I have a couple questions for you. How did I get here?" I told him about the paramedics and meeting him in the ER; he remembers nothing at all from the first day and a half here. He remembers Duke coming yesterday and his boss stopping by. Then he asked about the kids, I told him who has had them and how they're good. I told him about the meals we've had coming in and how I came home to three times as much food as I was expecting yesterday and tears just started rolling down his cheeks. Bryce isn't an easy cryer so I knew he was really touched. He didn't say anything, he's had a hard time finding words to say much and I know the emotion made it that much harder. We are so humbled, so moved and so grateful for all everyone has done.
Thursday morning:
My sister Amy arrived from Missouri to help for a few days; she leaves on Sunday morning. It's helped so much to have her here- if I have to face this with anyone other than Bryce I would choose her. He slept pretty good last night he said. He dialyzed this morning at 8, they took off 3.5 liters, his blood pressure still looks good and he just finished. He had some dinner last night- applesauce, chicken noodle soup and some roll so we're progressing past jello and juice. This morning he had applesauce, jello and a muffin for breakfast. He is anxious to get up and moving with PT even though he knows it's going to hurt a lot.
Thursday afternoon:
They just finished the fluid pull from his S1 (bottom of his spine, guess that's the site of the inflammation) It was awful. I had to wait out in the hall and I could hear him screaming- I've never heard him in pain like that. The assistant stuck his head out and said Bryce told him to ask me to pray. Gotta admit I lost it for a minute there. The radiologist came out after and talked to me- said they were able to get a few drops of fluid, mostly blood, and they'll try and culture that. The critical care doc said since he's on antibiotics it might come back negative anyway or take longer to grow, but we just won't know until they come back which takes 48-72 hours. He said it is definitely inflamed, they just need to figure out if it's infected. If it's not, the course of treatment is steroids and anti-inflammatories.. Bryce asked if he could just shoot some steroids in there to get it to heal. But if it's got bacteria that will just make the bacteria grow so that's not an option now.
The doctors are encouraged, progress is slow but they are moving in the right direction. Bryce is much less optimistic. He's been in so much pain and so uncomfortable; he's been pretty discouraged and down that he's taking a while to recover. He's a little worst-case-scenario right now, I keep reminding him we don't even know yet what the results are going to be so working ourself up over it being bad doesn't help. We'll wait til we hear more and cross that bridge as we come to it.
PT came right after we got back and he just couldn't bring himself to try and get up. They did leg/arm exercises in bed. His other numbers are looking good, I think the major thing right now is this pain in his hip.
He mentioned maybe a family fast- starting tonight going until tomorrow night? It's certainly not mandatory, anyone is welcome to join.
Thanks so much for all the continued love and prayers and support. We know that this too shall pass.
Working hard to stand for the first time with PT
Kids pretending to go sledding at home with Amy
Dialyzing in our room in the ICU
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