About 2:30 last night (Saturday) I woke up to Jack making gurgling sounds. He has a spastic esophagus and often just his normal saliva accumulates and he has to go into the bathroom and spit it out. I poked him and told him to go spit it out. He responded with ‘ok’. I did this two more times getting the same ‘ok’ response. Finally, I turn on the light. He’s staring up at the ceiling. Obviously, he has low sugar.
Figuring since he is answering me I could get some milk or juice down him. He was even able to sit up with assistance. After some coaxing and explaining as to what is going on and why he needed to drink he did take a couple of sips. But then…he would bite down on the straw, stare up at me, and give me a toothy smile, and say he-he-he. I’m trying hard not to giggle so that he takes this seriously. Some more coaxing, he would pat my arm or my side, and take a couple of sips.
He ‘ld say he was tired a lie back down. I’d coax him back up. He wasn’t too stable sitting up to begin with so I was holding him up with my hand on his upper back. My arm started to get tired, as this up and down has now been going on for a good 15 minutes, so I put my foot flat on the bed and rested my arm on my thigh with my hand supporting his upper back. This I’m not making this up – the dang dog comes in and puts his cold wet nose where it doesn’t belong which causes me to jump, I turn to shout at the dog and out of the corner of my eye I see Jack doing a slow motion fall sideways. Luckily still onto the bed. There he is on his side, smiling, and staring.
I start the whole process over again. Now I’m thinking what little he is drinking probably is just keeping his sugar from going even lower and not enough to start raising it. Time to call 911.
As before, the first to arrive was fire rescue. He must live close by as it was less than 10 minutes. Knowing when he comes completely around he will need to eath, I started making Jack a peanut butter sandwich after calling 911. I was just finishing that when I saw the red flashing lights coming down the street.
This time it was just 3 fire rescue guys. One asking me questions, another working with me to prick Jack’s finger to test for his blood sugar (it was at 48) while I'm still trying to keep Jack drinking, and the youngest pup just watching it all. Good thing I can multi-task.
And then the ambulance arrived. What Jack had drunk was starting to take effect as he was now sitting up on his own. The older of the two paramedics tells Jack to drink the orange juice and Jack slowly does. Because he was drinking and talking coherently, the decision was made that he didn’t need a glucose IV.
At one point Jack has this quizzical facial expression looking from one guy to the next. Finally he asks if they were from the hospital. One guy told him, “Kinda”. Shortly thereafter the rescue guys leave.
It’s now 3:30am, Jack has eaten the sandwich and answered all of their questions. Another blood test and he is up to 70. We all agree everything is under control. Another 20 minutes and we’re back in bed.
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Which, I haven’t updated his latest hospital adventure. No better time than the present. The following is parts of an email I sent family.
May 8, 2012
Writing from the hospital room. Jack had a gall stone removed.
The blow-by-blow account:
Around 7pm on Sunday, Jack said he was feeling a sharp pain. By 7:30 he wanted to go to bed, and by 8:30 he wanted to go to the hospital. It wasn't until 11pm that they took him for x-rays. Something was there that they wanted to do a CaT scan. That was done around 2am. Doc came in about 4am and said that he did have what appeared to be a gall stone in the bile duct and that Jack would be admitted to the hospital. He also said that someone from the surgical team would be in to discuss.
First to arrive was physician assistant from the internal doctor team, no more than an hour later it was one of the internal doctors, and then about 5:30 the surgeon that did an out-patient fixing of a couple of hernias and Jack’s bout with diverticulitis a couple of years ago. He wasn't convinced from the scan that it was just the stone. The scan wasn't the best because Jack couldn't drink all of the contrast and they weren't able to wait as long as they normally do between drinking the contrast and doing the scan because he was getting sick to his stomach every 10-15 minutes.
Somewhere around 7am he was admitted. And the string of this and that started. A case worker came in, a physical therapist, a woman that made sure Jack didn't have dementia or depression, nurse, nurses assistants (notice the plural), blood drawing person, cleaning room person, and one other woman that I don't recall what she was other than asking the same questions as the case worker, a DO doctor, a doctor on the internal team that I couldn't pronounce his name if my life depended on it (it was a huge long African name - not sure why he came in since he only asked Jack how he was feeling, made a joke, and left - must have a Mercedes payment coming up and needed to do a face to face in order to bill for the 'consultation'), and the doctor that was going to do the ERCP (endoscopic retrograde cholangio-pancreatography). Jack remembers little of all of this because he was either vomiting or sleeping during most of the time that any of them were in the room.
Around 9pm on Monday they were going to try a cocktail of sorts since nothing was helping with the pain and constant sick to the stomach. A different drug and the drug he was already taking rotating them every four hour. First four hours was the new one, four hours later the old, then four hours the new, etc. Knowing they would be with him almost constantly and having now been up for 40 hours, at 9:30 Monday night, I headed for home.
Noon on Tuesday he was wheeled in for the ERCP. The stone was a tad smaller than a sugar cube and somewhat rectangular. Because of its size, they broke it into pieces, removing some, and pushed some into the intestines to one day come out in a bowel movement. Since they are in there, they do a check of other organs. His pancreas looked good/normal. He does have a small ulcer in his stomach and a slight hiatal hernia. Two docs said neither are serious, just would do some preventative care to prevent them from becoming a problem. They would not need to remove the gall bladder, but that is not to say more stones won't develop and move. Due to Jack's age, they didn't want to unless they had to.
So, that's where we're at. I'm thinking tomorrow he will be released. Just waiting on the team to stop in and let us know what happens from here.
Hospital stay funny:
Two gentleman walk in, one of them said they were from St. Monica's Catholic parish.
Jack's response was no, that's okay, I'm Catholic.
That same gentleman repeated in a louder voice where they were from and asked if he wanted communion.
Jack said yes.
At one point the Lord's prayer was said.
It became obvious that the one that didn't do any talking couldn't hear any better than Jack because he was a slower than the other guy in saying the prayer.
It was a tad like two people doing the "Row Row Your Boat".
I had to really squeeze my nose to keep from chuckling out loud.
