karenulijohn

So many things have happened in the last four days since my last post, I hardly know where to begin.  I focused mostly on the colitis, but Harvey had been experiencing profound exhaustion, lack of energy, complete loss of appetite, considerable weight loss, and depression.  He spent most of his time laying on the bed, and slept about 18 to 20 hours per day.  He displayed no desire to get up , even if he could.  I was becoming very anxious about what was happening to him.  On Friday afternoon, we went for a ride in the car and upon our return, Harvey did not seem to be aware of his surroundings.  When he finally exited the car, he said he needed to close the garage door, which, by the way, was already closed.  When he finally made his way into the bedroom, he felt very hot.  He had a fever of 102 degrees F.  Naturally, I called the on-call Doctor and reported this, mainly because we were again heading into a weekend.  Dr. Gowda returned my call and we determined that the Lomotil was probably responsible for Harvey’s confusion, so we discontinued it.  On Sunday, he was still running a low grade fever although the confusion had subsided, but his speech was very slow and somewhat slurred.  We decided that when I called Dr. Suhag’s office on Monday, we were either going to go to the ER or get the Dr. to agree to admit him to the hospital.  We waited dutifully for return calls which never came, until finally, we just drove to the ER.  He was taken to a room immediately when they saw that his blood pressure was 70/50 with a very irregular pulse.  We spent most of the afternoon there while blood tests, chest Xray, and ECG were ordered.  Around 4:30PM, the ER Doctor came in, and we told him that we have done everything that we’ve been told to do in order to get him back on his feet, but our efforts were going unrewarded, and we felt it was time that the professionals intervened, namely the Doctors.  While he was unable to admit Harvey himself, he said he would make a good case for it to the “hospitalist.”  The hospitalist turned out to be an internist connected to the hospital who coordinates admissions for ER patients.  He was very kind, asked a lot of the same questions, and came to the conclusion we wanted.  Harvey was “in.”  It took another hour or so to get him to a room, but he was transported at about 5:30PM.

While we were waiting to go to the room, Dr. Suhag came to see Harvey.  He was very calm and kind, listening to all of our concerns.  Finally, he came around to where I was standing and put his arm around me and said, “this is not serious.  You mustn’t worry about this.  It’s going to be all right once we get his potassium, sodium, and red blood count up to proper levels.  He’s going to be fine.”  When I told our daughter what the Doctor had said, she commented that he was quick to pick up on my MO.  It did make me feel better, and I was grateful.  Harvey was given a very nice single occupant room on the first floor near the gift shop.  A nurse and a nurse’s aid introduced themselves and gave us a quick tour of the room and its amenities.  Almost immediately, they began to give him more fluids intravenously, and would continue giving him up to six bags of Potassium throughout the night.

When I arrived this morning, he was sitting up in a chair facing a delicious looking breakfast of fresh orange slices, scrambled eggs, sausage, country potatoes, oatmeal, and coffee.  He managed to eat most of the eggs and all of the orange slices.  That is actually the most solid food he has had in two weeks. The hospital doctor came and said Harvey would be there another night or until all of the tests had been completed and his blood levels have been normalized.  I left him for a couple of hours while he slept, and when I returned he was sitting, looking at a lunch of sliced turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, mixed vegetables and fruit.  He loved the potatoes and gravy, ate all of the fruit, but gagged over the turkey.  We took a walk down the hall, dragging his intravenous “buddy”.  I was surprised at how he seemed to be so willing to try to be active and to actually eat. It turns out that the nurses told him that if he didn’t get moving, he wouldn’t get to go home.  In fact, they had been trying to get a urine sample all morning with no luck.  Finally, around 1:00PM the nurse came in and said that if he wasn’t able to provide it, they would have to use a catheter.  Miraculously, within 20 minutes, a sample was produced.  That nurse simply provided a most effective incentive.

I had a lovely phone call from Harvey at about 6:00PM this evening.  He thanked me for coming to the hospital today, and for sticking with him through all of these trials.  He missed me and was looking forward to my visit tomorrow.  Our daughter and granddaughter are coming up from San Mateo to visit with us as well.  It will be a happy day, made that much more joyous because the Harvey I know and love is coming back.