Day Eighteen Part Two

5:40 PM

Don has had a pretty good day. He has slept most of the day. He hasn't eaten anything since breakfast except a cherry Italian ice. He has been very cold and did have a fever of 99 point something. The hand surgeon came by and said he hated to tell us something different (that's a first) than what we had been told, but Don will have to have hand surgery this week. He has dislocated his left thumb again. So it will have to be put back in place and held with either pins or they can reconstruct the area with ligaments from other parts of his hand. They will be able to do this surgery with a block to his arm rather than put Don to sleep. This doctor feels like we do that it may set us back again if we put Don to sleep for another surgery. His surgery is scheduled for about 6:00 Tuesday evening. This doctor also looked at the incisions from the hip/leg surgery and said he thought that Don may be having an allergic reaction to the sutures. We will know more about this tomorrow. The helicopter came in this afternoon with a trauma patient and Don heard it. I told him what was going on and he said "I hope they have good luck". He immediately began to cry and tell my how sorry he was that I was having to go through all this. I told him I would rather go through this than not have him. He is very tired and just wants to go home. We haven't had PT today but he has had several breathing treatments. Please just keep praying!!

Day Eighteen

11:30 AM

I left Don last night about 9:00 and I was planning on spending the night at our home. Don's parents were spending the night with him in the hospital. I called my mother-in-law about 10:30 to say that I was home and that Kristi was on her way to her home. About 11:00 Don's mother called me back to say that Don wanted to talk to me. When Don got on the phone his talk was some what confusing to me so I decided to come back to the hospital. I jumped in the shower while waiting on Kristi to come back to our house to ride with Donnie and I back to the hospital. When we arrived about 12:30 Don was smiling and wanted to hug us all. We stayed up until around 1:30 or 2:00 and finally the kids and I made a pallet on the floor and "slept" there. Don woke up several times during the night and on two occasions hollered out for Donnie. We only heard him once but his mom said he called for Donnie twice. I got up around 6:20 and went back to the side of his bed to sit with him. The nurse came before 7:00 to say that they had found bacteria growing in his blood & urine cultures and would be starting him on two antibiotics - vancomycin and zosyn. Don ate well this morning. He had an English muffin with egg and sausage and another piece of the chocolate cake with chocolate milk and the "magic cup" (pudding/ice cream - high protein dessert). The doctor came in shortly after breakfast and confirmed the bacteria situation and had the nurse to also circle the redness around Don's incisions to see if it will be larger the next time it is checked. He said they would continue to do tests on the bacteria to see what it was exactly and then they may have to change his antibiotics. The team of Trauma doctors came in sometime after 10:00 and pretty much told me the same thing. They did add that he was doing well in just maintaining and that his kidney counts were "level" and the either needed to be - or + (I forgot which one). So they increased the dosage on the mannitol to 20 mg/hr to help release some of the excess fluid. I told the nurse this morning I thought his feet were more swollen today. She said she did too. Did also had an infection in the catheter so they changed it out this morning when they bathed him and changed his sheets. One of the trauma doctors turned down his oxygen level (it had been increased to 4 sometime over the past few days). Don did well with that until he went to sleep and his oxygen levels fell into the 80's and on in to the 70's before I could get him awake to breath deeper. As soon as he woke up, the oxygen levels increased. I went to talk to his nurse who was right out side his door. She checked it and said it had been turned down to 2 liters and she increased it. The monitor only went off once more (he was in the 80's) in the next few minutes and it went right back up to the 90's and seems to be doing much better. Please keep praying!