John, Daily Download Freebie

I don't feel like blogging today, so this will be short.

They took John down to have a http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4743. The doctor came in while he was gone and said that he had been down there and not seen anything significant but that he still had to go over the results with the Cardiologist. He also asked if I was going to be able to care for him at home, as he is really weak after all of this. (Which I can.) That was this morning and I haven't seen him since.
The Nurse had told me that he was going to have more labs tomorrow morning so I knew before talking to the Dr. that we would be here at least one more night.
He has an appointment on Friday with Dr. Roy, so we may as well stay one more night, if not here then in a motel.
That's it on John.

Tomorrow's free download at ScrapHead can be found here. And here is the preview.

More on John, Day 4 download at Scraphead & DD

Boy, those hospital lounge chairs are not very comfortable! And they are upholstered in vinyl, so last night all I did was sweat. I think I will go home tomorrow and sleep in my own bed. All depends on what the doctors say.
Did you notice I added an s onto doctor? Dr. Thompson, his Pulmonologist (lung specialist) has joined in. We have been seeing him for about 4 years. John is a retired uranium miner, and a good portion of them have lung diseases. So far John has been lucky and has COPD but nothing too bad (meaning no cancer).

Anyway, this morning at 7 they sent in a technician to give him an ultrasound of his heart. Everything looked pretty good!
The doctor came around about 10. He had not yet looked at all the labs and stuff. He asked more questions, and we asked about the cramping John is getting in his hands and feet. We decided that may be an effect of the lasik and potassium that Dr. Barney put him on. So no more of that for now. Besides, perhaps they will get the problem with water on his legs figured out instead of just treating it!
The doctor said John will likely be in the hospital for a few more days.

I helped him in the shower and then he went for a walk. Not very far, but at least he had a little bit of activity.

Oh, did I tell you that he now has a voracious appetite?! Oh my gosh! Most of last week all he wanted was broth, ice water, and Popsicles. I don't know if he just didn't have the energy to eat more, or he was so waterlogged there was no room for food.
That is a whole other story! He has been sick with this and that for a few weeks now. It started when he was having major pain in the general area of his left kidney. That was on a Friday but he didn't say anything until that evening. The next morning we headed for the VA because it was hurting so bad. They figured he probably had a kidney stone. They did a CT and found what they thought was a tumor that was not distinguishable from the prostate. (He had prostate cancer 11 yrs ago.) So it being Saturday they sent us home until Monday when he could see the urologist. They did give us the option to head to the Denver VA, but we decided to ride it out here.
On that Monday we saw Dr. Roy, the urologist, and he did a cystoscopy. He did not find anything but also was not able to locate the opening to the kidney. He gave us some meds and sent us home. We got a call a couple of days later to set up a procedure to put a ureteric stent in place. Well he got the stent and had a nephrostomy tube with a urine bag coming out of his back to help drain the urine!
The next day Bridget gave us a challenge to do a layout with the word HOPE. Here is mine.

A couple of days later he was having a hard time urinating, and then he was going about every 10 minutes, but not much more than a dribble. I got him into the van and we went to the VA. He kept the urinal under his penis the whole way. All they did was give him some pain meds and send him home as there was nothing they could do for him over the weekend! So I went to Wally World to get some diapers for him.
So it has been a couple of weeks and we saw Dr. Barney last Wednesday. His offer was the lasik and potassium pills to decrease the water in John's legs and feet, and a Zpac for the infection in his sinuses. Then on Friday, Dr Roy put in the foley (his prostate is squeezing closed the ureter and that is why he was having a hard time going this time. He changed his meds again and gave us a medication for the probable infection in his bladder to start when he finished the Zpack.
So back to the appetite, the last ten days or so he has had little to no appetite. All he wanted was ICE water, popsicles and broth. I tried to give him vegetable soup and chicken noodle but all he wanted was the broth out of it, although a few times he had "cravings". In fact he would tell me ahead of time he thought he would have a craving for something and I better go get it so it would be on hand. Things like asparagus, spinach, vegetable juice, vienna fingers, ice cream sticks. And that would be all he wanted at the time, a bowl of spinach or ICE COLD vegetable juice. And of course after eating something cold we would then be freezing and have to have two comforters put over him so he could get warm. Then a few days ago he got his appetite back, for one meal a day. And he would eat more than usual. Then back to the other stuff.
Once they gave him that 1st unit of blood he started perking up a little. When they got him to his room they ordered him a tray. It was chipped beef, mashed potatoes and gravy and when he got his tray, he said wow that's a lot of food. But he ate every bit of it!

After that they took him downstairs to do a CT on his chest. They told us that it would be about 20 minutes. We thought that was enough time to go grab something to eat. We went down to the "cafe" but it was closed until 10pm. So we went to Taco Bell. We brought our food back to the room and a few minutes later they brought John back. That man ate half my dinner! I had three soft tacos and their new Mango/strawberry ice drink. He drank most of that and ate one and a half tacos. Within the hour he had a jello pudding to top it off! He has been eating like that ever since! Today he had a bowl of chocolate ice cream and a pudding and his three meals and some of my food.

We haven't learned anything new today, except that he does have a bladder infection, and they are treating that. They have also taken him off most of his meds and are only giving him his thyroid meds and one of the pills to treat his burning bladder feeling. This evening after dinner they sent him down for an MRI of his head.

In the morning they will give him a stress test at 9. That is most of what I know to this point. I will keep you informed.

Now on to the PREVIEW of tomorrow's download at ScrapHead. You can get it here.
Don't forget that Divine Digital also has download a day. Happy Scrapping,
Tess

Back in GJ, Day 3 Download

This morning I awoke to John caterwauling again. He wakes me up to do the littlest things! "Honeybunch!.... Honeybunch! But this time it was different. Usually he adds on, "I need some Ice Water" or "I need to take my pills" or something else that he could probably do for himself, but I have spoiled him.
It was just "Honeybunch" "Honeybunch". So I got up and noticed he was not in his easy chair. Ok, maybe he went back to bed. He had awakened me before 6 to change his foley into a leg bag so he could get up. I obliged and went back to bed. (We don't sleep together any more because "MY" snoring keeps him awake!)
So I rounded the corner and was headed for the bathroom, when I saw him laying on the floor in the kitchen. He had made himself a cup of coffee and was going to take it to the table. He doesn't know what happened. He had passed out! So I sat him up and he passed out again!
OMG! I thought he died! He stopped breathing! His eyes opened and the iris' dilated! He was not there! I lay him back down and slapped him lightly and called his name, but there was no response! I started positioning him to do cpr when he came back and started breathing! I swear I looked into dead eyes. They reminded me of glass pony beads with the color inside. Those eyes are seared into my brain!
Of course I called 911 and the ambulance brought him to St. Mary's hospital. When the first responder arrived and I explained the above they said it was "Syncope" (Sink-o-pea) and that most people who see a person pass out and their eyes roll back in their head think they die. His eyes did not roll back! But thank the Lord, he did come back!
They have found three things so far! #1 He is severely anemic. They have now given him two units of blood! The second thing is he has a little bit of a urine infection! And #3 he does not have a blood clot!
They have admitted him and I will be here in the room with him tonight. I don't want to miss the DR. in the morning! They have said that they will keep him until they know why the anemia. They need to know if he is not making enough cells or if there is something somewhere that is using them all up.
Well, it is 12:50 am. So I need to get some rest. But first, here is the preview for Day 3's download and the link to go get it!

John, ABC's of Tonya, SOTB

Ended up in GJ (Grand Junction) for the last couple of days.

John, my significant other, is going through some hard times medically right now. He was having problems urinating, and they did a CT to see what is going on. He has what appears to be a tumor on the bladder where the prostate is. (He had prostate cancer 10 years ago.) But when they put the stent in from the kidney to the bladder they didn't see anything other than the prostate has enlarged again.

The reason we stayed in GJ, between the price of gas right now, it wearing him out when we go to town, (it takes two hours one way) and him needing to see two Dr.'s in three days it was just more prudent to do that. While we were there they did another CT and saw there was no change.

He had been wearing diapers because the stent was irritating the bladder, so he was having no control from drip. However, he wasn't able to empty the bladder either. So today they put a catheter in and he will wear that for the next week. Maybe next week it will come out and they will do another scope to look to see what is going on up there.

On to other things. Jen asked us at chat tonight to put our blog addresses out there for others to know about. So I did. She is calling it a "Blog-Train". They are in hopes of getting SOTB (Scrap Outside the Box) back to being a great place for scrappers to want to go. SOTB is where I am making my ABC's of Tonya at.

At the motel last night, I went through some of my disks and I found some of the pictures I have been looking for to finish up G, W and J. Now if someone would upload a page I could get one of those uploaded. I also figured out what to make with E. So I can get that page made and upload it here and continue on.