Update on Jim

Sunday was Jim's 3rd day in the hospital.

Since our first report on his condition, he's had a doppler ultrasound and a lung/abdominal/pelvic CT scan. He continues on vitamin supplements and Lasix, a diuretic. The DRs are focusing on alcohol-induced cirrhosis. On Sunday, the GP said there is no evidence of tumor. Jim also had eight vials of blood drawn and the results showed he was low on magnesium, which he then received in an IV drip.

Jim's new roommate at 3AM Sunday morning came in with seizures and disorientation from alcohol withdrawal. The noise and commotion left Jim very confused and agitated, and the nursing staff gave him a tranquilizer, Ativan.

Jim's confusion continued later into Sunday morning. He refused to work with the nursing staff telling them, Venita was coming to take him home. When V got there at 10AM, the start of visiting hours, the room's LPN took V aside and explained how Jim was being uncooperative and that she could not finish cleaning his bed and gowning him for the day. (Many people are intimidated by Jim's strong-willed manner. This LPN looked like a deer in headlights.) In the room, V found Jim in street clothes with his belongings on the table, ready to be packed to go home.

V put Jim's things away, and got him to allow the staff to finish their morning chores. It took a couple hours to get him settled down and for him to understand that he was being kept "in jail" for a few more days. His spirits lifted as the day went on. V was disappointed that the Phillies/Mets baseball game was cancelled Sunday afternoon; that would have provided Jim a nice diversion and "grounded" him in a bit of his own reality.

(For those who don't know, Jim is a huge Phillies fan and went to the team's Spring Training in Clearwater, FL, for the entire month of March for maybe eleven years straight.)

Apparently Jim saw a gastroenterologist before V got to the hospital. Jim had no memory of that visit and his chart showed no notes except "continue treatment." In the morning, a urologist visited. The nursing staff had tried to put a bladder catheter into Jim on Saturday, but had blown the balloon in the urethra, not the bladder. Jim had been bleeding since that little misadventure. The urologist said Jim was OK but that the bleeding would continue for a few days. The hospital based GP visited in the afternoon. He discussed the magnesium deficiency and the current diagnosis.

When V left for the day at 7PM, Jim was in high spirits, although he had been drifting in and out of sleep most all day. He ate quite a bit of both meals served while V was there. He was having some visual hallucinations (he kept seeing movement in an impressionistic print of flowers on the wall), but those visions were not agitating him. V made sure Jim understood that the rule for the night was "do what the nursing staff says" and let the staff know they could call her any time if she needed to talk to and calm Jim down.

Yep, Venita is whipped. Continuing problems with tingly feet. She made plans with the nursing staff to be into the hospital Monday morning at 7AM to be able to speak with all of the DRs. If Jim progresses at the rate he is going, he will likely be discharged from the hospital around Thursday. Still a question of discharge to where. Jim is now refusing to consider a transitional facility, whereas V believes that (depending on Jim's condition), that may be a better idea than coming home with her. The week after next, she has appointments/procedures prepatory to and, of course, the surgery.

Sigh. Such speedbumps on the road of life.