Our Patient is Home!

Wow, we had a ROUGH week!

Dom was hospitalized on Friday afternoon.  Slidell Memorial Hospital.  Christine flew in on Saturday afternoon.

We had one scare after another.

They thought that he had contracted C-Diff and had him in isolation for 2 days.  We later found that this can be deadly.  Thankfully, he dodged that bullet!

Dr. Michael Nguyen was the admitting physician.  Very NICE guy who put together a phenomenal "dream team" for our Dom.

(In the past, I've always chosen to be admitted to another Slidell hospital.  Ochsner.  I might have to change preferences!)

All-day, every day, there was a stream of doctors, nurses, and therapists in and out of his room.

Dom had 2 Kidney Specialists, An Infectious Diseases doctor, A Cardiologist, a Neurologist, Occupational Therapists, and Physical Therapists.

Sadly, Dom is not producing his own blood, thus needing transfusions.  He had 2 units transfused during this hospitalization. The kidney doctors had him on Sodium, Potassium, and Electrolytes.

He was diagnosed with Samonella and was treated with 2 different antibiotics.

He was sent home yesterday afternoon with 8 more days of antibiotics, as well as sodium supplements.

We follow up with his Kidney Specialist, Dr. Kovachev in a couple of weeks.  He'll be keeping an eye on Dom's Creatine levels.

Heading to see Dr. Safah at Tulane on Wed.  Dr. Calabresi (Slidell oncologist) the following Tuesday, then Dr. Kovachev later in the week.

It's been a wild ride.  THANK GOD Dom is home.  I had my doubts last Friday.  He was incoherent.  What a scare.

GOD IS GOOD.  Thank you for all of the prayers and phone calls!

Dom is Slowly Improving! No C-Diff, but Salmonella.

When Christine and I arrived at 11 am, the Occupational Therapist had him out of bed and sitting in a chair.

He's no longer in ISOLATION.  He tested NEGATIVE for C-Diff!

The Physical Therapy guys were outside his room, ready to pounce on him.  I told them to "Give him Hell".  They were delighted. 

They WANTED to walk him, but after laying on his back for 5 days, his blood pressure was too low.  They'd test it sitting up.  LOW.  Test it standing up.  LOWER.  They're going to try to get him walking tomorrow.

Dom asked to go back to bed and we all said, "NO!".  He ended up sitting in that chair for more than 2 hours.

Our Slidell Oncologist came in.  Told us that he was SO HAPPY that Dom didn't have C-Diff.  He's lost TWO PATIENTS from that!  He said that he wants to get Dom STRONG before he gets out of the hospital.  His blood counts are dropping, so I'm guessing that he'll need another blood transfusion soon.

Then Dr. Koachev, partner of Dom's Kidney specialist, came in.  He spent almost 30 minutes with us.  Explained that Dom was limited to 2 liters of liquids per day.  Getting IVs of Sodium, Potassium and Electrolytes for his kidneys.  Also told us that his Creatine had jumped from 2.5 yesterday to 3.5 this morning.

Dom's collar bone started killing him, so they put him back in bed with a percocet.  When he started getting dopey, we left.

Did a little shopping, had a late lunch and came home.

Dom called.  The Infectious Diseases Dr. made an appearance.  She said, "You told me that you had Salmonella once.  Well, you've got it again!  No more runny egg yolks!".

She then went on to say that his Creatine number dropped from this morning's 3.5.

Feeling hopeful, gang!