Monday, November 2, 2009

Dad was transferred back to PMC East Campus, the Cardio Vascular ICU. His white blood cell count was up, which indicated an infection. They initially told Mom that Dad's incision was infected.

When I went to the hospital tonight to visit Dad, I happened to get there just as the general surgeon and another doctor were discussing Dad's case and about to call Mom to explain the course of action they had decided on and to get her permission. One doctor told me that he had inspected Dad's incision to see if he could see where it was infected. He was very adamant in saying the infection was not in Dad's incision. With the white blood cell count as high as it was this morning, it's obvious there was some kind of infection somewhere in Dad's body, but they really don't know where. The antibiotics he is now on should resolve that issue.

The GI tract is working properly, all except the stomach. The stomach has three mechanical tasks. First it stores the swallowed food and liquid. To do this, the muscle of the upper part of the stomach relaxes to accept large volumes of swallowed material. The second job is to mix up the food, liquid, and digestive juice produced by the stomach. The lower part of the stomach mixes these materials by its muscle action. The third task of the stomach is to empty its contents slowly into the small intestine. Dad's stomach is doing none of this. It is just sitting there, which is the problem. It's not letting any nutrition through.

Tomorrow, they are going to surgically insert a feeding tube, but they are bypassing the stomach. I hate the thoughts of Dad undergoing another surgery, but it is obviously imperative that he starts getting the nutrition he needs soon. Is this feeding tube something that is going to be permanent? Possibly, but that is an answer the doctors obviously don't have right now. The tube they will be inserting can be easily removed at a later date, if Dad's stomach starts functioning as it should. It is also very durable, so if it needs to be in place for a significant period of time, it can do that.

The doctors I spoke with tonight feel that the problem with the stomach is something that has been going on for a while, which actually explains a lot. Dad has had trouble eating from the time he got home from his hospital stay in Seattle.

The doctors assured me that Dad is not on his death bed, despite how beat up and weak he looks. They told me he is actually a very strong man, with a strong will to live. Once they get real nutrition in his body, we will see a huge improvement.

They were also doing dialysis while we were there. I asked the technician exactly why they were having to do dialyses every day, sometimes a couple of times a day. It's also tied into the nutrition problem. In order for the dialysis to keep up with the volumes of fluid being put into Dad's body through the IVs delivering his nutrition, they have to do it often and even as often as they have been doing it, they are "behind" in getting rid of the fluids.