Other Not So Pleasant News

Friday September 14, 2018
Charlottesville Virginia

I mentioned in my last happy post that both David and I had colds which were keeping us from visiting our new grandson. 

Since he was not feeling well with the cold, we left the Great Smoky Mountains early and moved to Charlottesville on Tuesday August 29.  He was at the doctor the next day,  They did some tests and put him on antibiotics.  When things had only gotten worse in the next week and I could not keep his fever down without giving him 1000 mg of tylenol every 6 hours, I took him to the ER and he was admitted to the hospital with  pneumonia on Thursday September 6.  They put him on a wider spectrum antibiotic and on oxygen as his O2 count was low upon admission. 

It has been up and down since then.  They have done all sorts of tests, cultures and procedures in an attempt to see if there are other agents at work here and have come up with nothing but the rhino virus.   This past Monday they did a bronchoscopy which seemed to go well until a couple hours after the procedure when his temperature spiked to 104, his respiration dropped precipitously, his BP shot up as did his heart rate.   He was on the edge of ICU admission but they managed to stabalize him.  VERY scary.

It has taken 3 days to recover from that but this past 24 hours he has had no fever which is a very good thing.   Still he remains in the hospital until he can breathe on his own, is strong enough to climb 5 steps. and continues with no fevers.

 

The pictures are telling.

Feeling well enough to insist on having his head shaved to get rid of the Einstein look and to smile about it.  Tylenol must have been keeping his fever must have been normal at this point

Six days later, the day of the bronchoscopy

Through it all, the one thing that never faultered was his appetite.  No matter how badly he felt, he was able and anxious to eat.  Such a good thing since it has helped him to weather yet another storm.

This picture was taken yesterday.   He’s looking and feeling much better and this morning had gone for 24 hours with no fever for the first time in nearly three weeks.

We’re hopeful that this is the start of the recovery that will lead to his discharge.

We want to advise you to be grateful every minute for your good health and to get a full physical at least once a year.  Things can change over night as they did for us.  David was the healthiest person we knew until that surprise day in January of 2012.