mike's pneumonia chronicles #16

I think my daughter, Barbara, has been too tired or busy to write in her detailed manner about her husband, Mike, and his pneumonia so I will fill in for today. He continues to take baby steps forward each day. He is looking and focusing on people, mostly on Barbara. He wakes up for about 10 minutes at a time several times a day and the rest of the time sleeps. On November 1 he was stable enough to have surgery to put a central line into his neck for dialysis and have a tracheostomy in his neck so he no longer is intubated through his mouth. His ventilator is set on "assist mode" so he is partially making an effort to breathe and is able to take extra breaths above what the ventilator setting is on. He had 2 chest tubes and yesterday one of them was clogged so the doctor removed it and said he only needed one. He still has a hole in his right lung and the chest tube keeps his lung inflated. His GI tract is working and he is absorbing a tube feeding so he is no longer on TPN (which is intravenous nutrition and is hard on the liver). About a week ago one of the nurses said he had lost about 30 pounds. He had been very jaundiced with bright "yellows" instead of whites of his eyes but now they are white again. He has progressed from blinking on command to wiggling his fingers and toes, moving his left arm to his stomach and shaking both legs.

He has been running a low grade fever every afternoon and the doctors keep doing cultures to try to discover the origin of whatever is causing it. His white blood cell count is normal so he doesn't have a big infection that his body is fighting. The Vancomycin was finally discontinued today. It is a very strong, broad spectrum (treats many organisms) antibiotic and is probably responsible for shutting down Mike's kidneys, along with the positive things it has done in helping him get over his pneumonia. His left lung looked a little cloudy in the x-ray today so hopefully it will look better tomorrow. He had to start on a couple of new antibiotics today since something is not right. Yesterday his heart rate went up to 185 and it was brought down with a medication called adenosine.

I know I am being clinical and focusing on all the little details from a medical viewpoint but mainly I am just concerned about my son-in-law getting well and resuming the life he once had or a new version of it. He's still in ICU in Kaiser Riverside. We look forward to the day when he is awake, alert, off the respirator and chest tube, able to see his children and start his rehabilitation.

Thank you for your prayers for his recovery. He is still very fragile although he has come a long, long way.
Janet