Today was my third day working at the Houston office. I'm surprised by how fast the time goes by at work. I'm only working 7 hours or so, but it seems to just fly by. I guess it's because I had something that needed to be done and only a set amount of time to do it. Whatever the reason, I really like when the time goes by quickly. I felt quite productive today.
Adam had a very busy day at the hospital, too. They did an EKG, an echocardiogram, and a nuclear kidney test. The neurologist was supposed to come by today, too, but decided not to since it was so busy in here. They were supposed to spread all of ese ings out over the next several days, but someone thought they would be helpful and get it all done at once. Well that caused quite a bit of craziness.
For the nuclear kidney test, they injected Cael with some sort of solution, then drew blood every hour for 3 hours. They will test the blood to make sure his kidneys are filtering his blood correctly. While that was going on, the echo was being done. The echo took an hour, and Adam had to try and hold Cael still the whole time. And the nurses were trying to draw blood during that time too. Oh, and then Cael needed a diaper change in the middle of all that. Then the phone rang, and the neurologist was asking if it was a good time to come see Cael. Whew! A whole lot was happening at once.
Luckily all of Adam's hair was still on his head when I returned. He hadn't pulled it all out.
We haven't heard any results from any of the tests yet. I imagine we will find out tomorrow about a few of them.
Today was a rough day for Cael, even aside from all the tests. He has been having really loose stools all day. 8 times, in fact. (sorry...too much information. I know) It is caused by something called clostridium difficile (c diff). Because he has been on antibiotics for awhile, those antibiotics have killed a lot of the good bacteria that was in his body. This left room for the c diff to spread and cause problems.
The doctors make it sound like it isn't too big of a deal, but when I looked it up on mayo clinic, it sounds serious. It can cause symptoms ranging from diarrhea to life threatening inflammation of the colon. It is another one of those illnesses that is much worse for someone who has an immune deficiency like Cael does.
They started him on flagyl a couple days ago, but it hasn't helped. In fact he has had more poos today than the past few. If he hasn't gotten better in the next day or so, they are going to switch him over to another medicine called vancomycin. That drug, however, requires a special permission from the pharmacist to use. I guess there is a shortage of that particular drug or something.
Because of the diarrhea, he hasn't been eating particularly well today either. Also, they have started m on IV fluids to ensure he doesn't become dehydrated.
What amazes me most is that in spite of all this, he is still SO happy. He had a giggling fit that lasted about 20 minutes this evening. Everything we did made him laugh at us. He even snorted! It was so cute.
Nothing can bring Cael down. He's going to smile through all of it. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment