We prepped for Urgent Care Monday morning, but we never made it. James made it down the stairs okay, but when he got to the door to the garage, he got one foot down, and could not get the other foot out the door. Then his knees began to fail. Luckily we had a shower chair in the garage that we had bought for his sister Candy and never got to give her. I shifted it under him and he was able to sit. Then I called 911.

The paramedics came and his vitals were okay, but he definitely couldn't walk anymore. They called for an ambulance, but there was an hour's wait. Instead they helped me get him in the car and we went to the emergency room at St. Joseph's. He wasn't in triage ten minutes when they said he "was the sickest person in the emergency room" and we went right back.

To sum up, his bloodwork was terrible; his creatitine was sky high, his BUN 175, his GFR down to 8, and he had much too much potassium in his system. Right before I had to leave to get the animals to bed, he was assigned a room, 508.

I woke up about four feeling uneasy. I noticed Kaiser had called me three times and the phone hadn't rung, even though I disabled Do Not Disturb. I called the hospital and James wasn't in 508 anymore; he was in 207, in Intensive Care. I promptly had hysterics. The switchboard at the hospital was very nice and got me in touch with his floor, where the nurse assured me he was fine. His potassium was still high, so they had transferred him into ICU.

This was a grubby little room with the toilet behind a shower curtain and nowhere for me to sit, so I sat on the toilet, and later on a folding chair which I would recommend as a torture device. I had bought Zaxby's wings for lunch/supper and felt guilty because no one would let James eat because "we don't have the doctor's permission." The doctor wandered in about four and said, "But I gave orders that he could eat." Sigh. This became a lietmotif for the week: he would need something, but it would need a doctor's approval, but the nurse never got it, like having his sleeping pill at night. He went 72 hours without sleep because they wouldn't give him one except the first night. He also never got miconozole powder for the fungal infection he had on his lower abdomen, and the skin was all cracked and red.

They had, I learned, stuck a tube in his neck and had to dialyze him in the middle of the night. They took two liters of fluid off him.

So the time had finally come, the thing we have been fighting off for six years. He's on kidney dialysis for good now.

Wednesday I was going to pick up a meal at Tin Drum, but the line was out the door. I grabbed a burger and fries instead and was starving all day. I did check out the cafeteria: they had ... shudder ... fried haddock or something spicy chicken. Gross. They also moved James back to the fifth floor (502), he'd had dialysis, and was dead bored. You know it's dull when there's nothing on but Law & Order: SVU.

I did get my Tin Drum on Thursday, but I wouldn't eat until they took James downstairs (several hours late) to get a permacath put in. Why a permacath, you ask? Didn't James have fistula surgery last August because Dr. Kongara knew the dialysis was coming because his BUN was rising? Yes he did. And the surgeon told James that the fistula was fine. But the hospital wouldn't use it because the port area "wasn't big enough." (They gave him two ultrasounds on the arm. We never did hear how they came out.)

We were so bored we watched, James at the hospital, me at home, the debate tonight. It is pathetic that, in this huge country, these are the best two candidates for President we have. Daniel Webster, Charles Sumner, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, and other statesmen are turning in their graves.

By Friday, James still hadn't had any sleep. I got Zaxby's again because it was just easier, only to arrive and discover they were sending him home. Of course, that took hours and ... surprise! ... they sent him home at rush hour. They had a whole bunch of plans for at home physical therapy and arranged for us to have dialysis at the DaVita center two miles from our house in the Smyrna Kroger shopping center, and they said he was well enough, but when we got home he didn't have enough strength to get up the four steps to the foyer where the lift chair is.

Oh, Dr. Austin waltzed in before I showed up on Friday. His first words to James were, "I hear you almost died the other night." What the heck??? Yes, his potassium was so high that, if I hadn't taken him to the emergency room on Monday, his heart probably would have stopped by Wednesday!

So, for the second time this week, we called the fire department. God bless them!

With a bunch of sleep James was feeling better next day; he even cooked breakfast. I did chores on Saturday and we were both sick on Sunday (food poisoning?).

Monday I hope he will be strong enough to get down and up those four steps, because he has to go to dialysis.

In other news, I finally found an avian vet for Oliver (who is indeed an Oliver and not an Olivia). I took him to Riverview Animal Hospital where we used to take Leia so long ago. It turns out Oliver has an infection in his air sacs (sort of like bird pneumonia). I think he may have gotten it when he boarded in March. I have to give him medicine twice a day, and he has to stay in a hospital cage (surrounded with a blanket except in front) and I'm to eat with him to make him eat more. I had him in the spare bedroom while James was in the hospital. He hates taking the meds and the fact that I had his wings clipped so he wouldn't get away from me, and I feel like such a heel.

Labels: budgies, food, health, pets, politics, sickness

----------------------------------------------------------------
. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:57:00 PM

Comments:

Oh dear, such challenges you are facing. I've just prayed for you, James & his medical caregivers, and for Oliver & his medical care givers.

# posted by  Karen : 10:44:00 AM

 

Post a Comment