neurotwitch

back to the hospital

I just got in from taking Stanley back to Bridgeport Hospital. He is being admitted again because there are complications from his surgery. He has a staph infection that needs to be treated very aggressively so that it doesn’t get to his new valve, which would screw things up royally. So far, it’s above his sternum and doesn’t seem to have spread anywhere else. This infection is one he picked up in the hospital during or after the operation.

But wait, there’s more. His left lung is filled with fluid and needs to be drained, and there is fluid around his heart, which the doctor said is “normal.” But, they can’t drain the fluid in his lungs yet because his coumadin level is way, way too high, which means his blood is way too thin and he would bleed too much from something as invasive as opening up another hole in him for another tube. So they’re giving him Vitamin K (Stanley calls it liquid spinach) to get the coumadin level down.

Right now, he’s in the ER waiting for a bed in telemetry (I have no idea what telemetry is, just know it’s on the 7th floor)—they will probably move him in there in the morning. He had a chest x-ray and a CAT scan and lots of blood tests. His hemoglobin count is lower than it was yesterday (“He’s a little anemic, but that doesn’t explain the pallor,” said the surgeon), but his white blood cell count is also lower, which is a good thing. He’s on oxygen because his level is low.

Don’t know how long he’s going to be in the hospital—sounds like days from what the doc was saying.

Stanley says the fluid in his lungs explains a lot of things, like why it hurts on his right side but not his left when he takes deep breaths. He wept when I told him today that I had to take him back to the hospital, he is so very tired and in such pain and is so weak, but now that he’s there and knows what’s going on, he’s relieved though very upset. I’m relieved that he’s being taken care of, and I’m upset about it, and very, very angry that it had to get so far. It seems that there should be more than a coumadin level check once a week post-op—there should have been, at the very least, a weekly checkup by a doctor to check his lungs and blood pressure and whatever.

And I don’t know why Dr. Robinson couldn’t have ordered more tests on Wednesday when we took him there to get the infection looked at, or had him admitted yesterday ... I just know this should have been caught sooner. And, I found out, there is something they should have had Stanley inhale pre-op, which would have prevented the staph crap from happening. I’ll have to find out more about that and ask why it wasn’t done.

So I’m scared, and pissed off, and just hoping they take care of him properly this time. Now I need to get some sleep—tomorrow is going to be a long, long day.

<< Back to main