Mary’s Pad

Literally, it’s been really crappy.  Mary has been really really sick, and had to be admitted to the hospital for a good number of days. Even after them pumping her with 4L of IV fluids in the ER they couldn’t bring her fluid balance back to equilibrium, and she was emptying herself as fast as they were filling her up. She was also in excruciating abdominal pain.  She was on a Morphine drip for a couple of days, and then on a Dilaudid drip the rest of the time because the morphine was making her goofy, as if she isn’t goofy enough already.

Anyway, after getting rid of everything in her stomach and entire intestinal tract through both exits (I did say it’s been crappy, didn’t I?),  her GI system seemed to settle down, but she was still in a lot of pain.  They tested for all the usual suspects - C. Diff, Salmonella, Giardia, Cryptosporidium, Campylobacter, etc etc, but found nothing to explain what was happening.  So they called in the experts and started doing a battery of tests, some really exotic ones that I had never heard of. They’re still not sure what’s happening, but this is something that’s been chronic for a long time now and suddenly got really bad, and they’re hoping to nail it down once and for all, so that we can start managing it and getting her more healthy.

Well, she was discharged a couple of days ago and is home recuperating, but whatever the problem is is still a big mystery.  We’re waiting on results from some of the more complicated tests that they did and she has some more tests to go, including an abdominal EEG and a capsule endoscopy.  They did do the standard upper and lower scope and take samples from her entire gut to biopsy, so hopefully these will tell the true story.

Thanks for everyone who called and kept checking in to see how she was doing.  She’s getting better but still not being able to keep anything down, so we’re exploring a few different alternatives to keep her hydrated and healthy enough.  She still has pain but they’re trying different drugs to manage the pain and so far she’s holding her own.  And it’s great to have her back home where I can practice my nursing skills on her (*wicked grin*).

I would like to officially and publicly apologize to Walter because for a while there I was blaming him for this whole thing, since he and his relatives are notorious for carrying salmonella. Turns out he was entirely innocent and did not deserve the few evil looks he got.