Friday, June 30, 2006

The rest of today

Most of the day was rather frustrating to us today. Randy's mom and I were at the point that we were going to actually stay the night there at the hospital. But someone, I believe from Randy's work, is related to one of the head nurse's in the section that Randy is in. We called the sister and she came in and really took care of Randy. By the time we left he was looking so much more comfortable and so much more relaxed. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you to whoever called and gave my mother-in-law the name and number and to the sister nurse. Thanks to you guys, we were able to feel confident enough to come home and get some rest.

Earlier today, Randy started really breathing heavily ~ he seemed like he was really stressing to breath. I went to grab the nurse and she came in and cleaned out this mouth and nose, but he kept sounding distressed. So I got the nurse to call the respiratory people. They said that Randy was breathing more through his mouth now, where as before he was breathing through his nose. By breathing through his mouth, it was drying his mouth out and it creates almost like a cast in the back of the throat, making it very difficult to breath. The respiratory person cleaned him all out and put a mask on him that gives his mouth moisture needed to not have that happen again.

The other issue we had to deal with was the infection. By the time we left they still had not done the lumbar puncture. They will probably do it tomorrow morning. The infectious disease doctor said that Randy definitely has an infection in the area that they had the tubes in his upper chest where they put his medicine in. He gave orders to have that taken off. The head nurse (the friend's sister) did that herself. We should know tomorrow if Randy has meningitis as well. Since they weren't able to do the test right away, the infectious disease doctor went ahead and started Randy on a secondary antibiotic ~ so right now he is getting two very strong antibiotics. He really was so much better by the time that we left this evening.

The head nurse also got Randy on the list for a private room. Once he gets that, I will be able to stay in the room with him during the night. I will post the new room number once he gets moved ~ she said it should be at the latest of Monday unless something major gets in the way.

I think that is all of the updates from today.

1 comment:

HeatherD said...

Rachel - God is with you and your family. Hang in there!
Randy - you be strong for your family. They are doing all they can for you, and you need to be strong for them, as well.
We will see you up and on your feet in 2 months.