Released from the hospital!

David is now at home! He is still very tired, he still holds a lot of water in his body, and he is not yet ready for visitors. He has home care nurses coming over to help him with IV medications, and he sleeps a lot. But at last, after three long weeks, he is back home! We are all delighted!

Peace,
Monika

Doing better!

After a few days of medical ups and downs, and doctors with varying opinions, it is now fairly clear that David is getting better. The bacterial and fungal infections in his blood are going away. His liver values are returning to normal. His temperature is no longer spiking. And his water weight is greatly diminished. He is still battling pain issues, and he has lost all the hard-won weight he put on over summer. We will have to feed him a lot when he gets home. As of now it sounds like they are preparing to send him home in a few days. I'll keep you posted!

Monika

Yesterday evening David was transferred out of the ICU and back to his posh single room with the fabulous view. It is a step in the right direction, but his blood tests show a new bacteria in his blood, one which requires yet another switch of antibiotics. A few days ago he had entrococchi bacteria, now he has gram negative rods. It is tricky to find the right balance of drugs, to fit each new species.

David is also retaining a large amount of water in his body, but today he was finally well enough to be put on diuretics, so that he can start to shed some of his water weight, which is probably in the range of 60-70 pounds worth. Such a large amount of fluid stresses his body, and makes him quite uncomfortable.

This afternoon the doctors did an MRI on him in order to try to pinpoint from where his infections originate. If they cannot treat the site from where all these infections arise, they will keep recurring, and that will not be workable. No word yet on what they found on the MRI, the image will have to be read by experts. We are hoping they can find some answers this time, and that we will know more tomorrow.

Peace and love,
Monika

Late Friday night David was transferred from the ICU to a fancy private room, with a view of the Charles River, and hallways with mahogany- paneled walls. It was posh. He enjoyed it for the weekend, then late Sunday he started having chills which persisted through the night, due to high fevers. His blood pressure dropped, remained low, and on Monday morning he was transferred back to ICU.
He has an infection in his blood, with a bacteria that is resistant to Vancomycin, and instead needs heavier antibiotics. This morning blood tests showed that he now also has a yeast infection in his blood. The doctor told him they will wipe out both the bacteria and the yeast by using powerful antibiotics and anti-fungal medicines respectively. This will keep him in the ICU for a bit longer though. Dave will have a CT scan later this afternoon, when they will look for infections in his body. More later.....

Peace,
Monika

Update

Sorry it has taken me a few days to get this update to you. One of the reasons for my tardiness is that school started back up, so I've been running between work and the hospital and coming home exhausted and dejected to walk the dog and crash. The other reason is that David seemed stuck in a cycle of mental confusion and sleeping, and I could not get a sense of where things were going.
Yesterday David was much better, and almost back to his own self, at least mentally. Just the day before he was hallucinating something crazy. A sampling of his drug-induced wisdom:
"This room looks like a Japanese kid's room." (About his hospital room).
"Raw fish, raw fish, just like at a Japanese birthday party."
"Look at those big flowers all over the wall. It's very Japanese." (He was on a Japanese kick that whole afternoon. He had had a Japanese nurse in the room for a couple of minutes.The day before that though, he had been in a Vietnamese restaurant for most of the day....)
Then he was ordering food. He was starving. He hadn't eaten for six days, and circled some 12 items off of the menu, including, soup, turkey pot pie, mashed potatoes, gravy, butter, rolls, blueberry pie, vanilla custard and chocolate ice cream. Then he turned to Amanda and said:
"You're not going to eat my food, are you?"
"No, of course not. Why would I?"
"Maybe you are trying to be Japanese."
"Why, is that what the Japanese do? Eat your food?"
"Yeah-uh! When their economy is in the tank it is."
Then he turned to me with an accusatory look, and said
"Monika. Will you stop playing with my urinal! They'll think I'm the crazy one."
I told him I would try to refrain myself.
Later he told Deb she couldn't stand up because she had a snake wrapped around her leg.
We were much amused, but it was also very worrisome. I couldn't tell if his confusion was strictly drug induced, or if there was something more dire going on. That was why it was such a relief to see him yesterday, completely lucid, and with his faculties back to normal.
Over these last few days he has been through a lot. He has been given 12 or so bags of blood. They did a procedure where they went in and unclotted his stent, which had become blocked. That went well, but he is still retaining fluid. He stopped bleeding, then started again. His blood values have been stable, then dropped again. Today they performed a colonoscopy, to try to figure out where he is bleeding from. David was up all through last night, prepping for the colonoscopy, so he is very tired today.
More later.....

Peace and love,
Monika

Knocked down a bit

We had a wonderful time at Nicky's and Nam's wedding last weekend in Baltimore, where David was the officiator for the lovely couple. It was a most beautiful event, and we danced and laughed and loved every minute of it!

Our week started up after Labor Day, and David went back to teaching, all excited and happy to be back in the normal routine. Then, on Thursday eve, he started vomiting up huge amounts of blood. He was home alone at the time, and called 911. He was taken by ambulance to Mass General Hospital Emergency room, where they admitted him as an acute case. Later in the night he was transferred to the ICU, where he remains today. He is doing better, and we both feel that he is in the right place, care wise. The first 24 hours he received seven bags of blood, which stabilized him. He has remained stable, only needing one more bag of blood, he is bleeding less, but they have not yet figured out where the bleeding is coming from. He is pumped up on pain killers, which makes him very tired and incoherent. Today he was allowed to sit in a chair for a while, and was put on a clear liquid diet. That is after having nothing but ice chips since Thursday night. He is progressing, and carefully watched. Being the weekend there are fewer doctors on duty, so from my end it seems that he is in a holding pattern until his regular team comes back tomorrow.

Things are moving in the right direction, but we are of course disappointed at this latest bump in the road to his recovery. I will write more later.

Monika