The stomach pain is the result of her continuing battle with diarrhea. Last night, they got her heart rate back down, and then did two CT scans. Then, at 5 am, they came in and gave her two units of platelets. Her heart rate went over 150 which scared her again. She has had platelets infused several times without noticeable heart rate problems. So, I don't see how she got much sleep.
In our meeting, with Dr. Engelhardt and the team this morning, the doctor said that he was going to make some changes in an attempt to solve the stomach and heart problems which seem to be related.
He is changing Mary Jo's diet from a Neutopenic one to a Bland or "clear diet. However as I am writing this, evidently Food Services hasn't gotten the word, yet. They just brought her beef stroganoff for lunch.
I guess I'll have to take care of the stroganoff for her. One of the few perks for being the caregiver. It just happens to be one of my favorite dishes. Claire, Mary Jo's nurse for today, is calling Food Services to get the bland stuff sent up for her. Dr. Engelhardt also ordered a morphine pump for her. So, she has another box on her tree. That's it at the bottom. When she feels the onset of stomach pain, she is supposed to hit a button. She gets a low dose of morphine. The pump has safeguards set up on it, so she can't overuse it.
They are also going to give her Imodium 24 hours a day. The doctor also prescribed another antibiotic for her. At least, she doesn't have C-diff. There is one person in isolation up here who does have it. It must be nasty stuff. The bumps that she has in her mouth are gradually getting worse. She has neen washing out her mouth with a baking soda solution, and brushing her teeth with a special toothpaste hopefully those things will keep the mouth sores under control. The next step is to use something called Miracle Mouth. All the nurses say that it works great.
They started Mary Jo on her daily Neupogen shots yesterday. They are giving her those to boost her stem cells since she was a little short on the number of the number that they wanted for the transplant. Tomorrow will be her seventh day in the hospital. Dr. Engelhardt didn't mention anything about leaving. So, I guess we'll be here for awhile longer.
We met a deacon from the Cathedral of the Incarnation here this morning. His name is Thales Finchum. Thursday is his day to bring Communion to the patients here at Vanderbilt. He was ordained in 2006 as I was. The Cathedral has 2,300 families and the average age of their 4,800 parishioners is 35. Pretty impressive for an inner city parish. The outside of the Cathedral is beautiful, especially when the bell tower is lit at night. From the picture, it looks like the inside is beautiful, too.
Deacon Thales, and I talked about the various ministries that we are involved in, and how rewarding hospital and nursing home ministry is. He invited us to visit him at the Cathedral when Mary Jo gets out of the hospital. The Cathedral is about a mile away. Here's a picture of Deacon Thales from their website.
No comments:
Post a Comment