Good Riddens 2012! Hopefully last 2012 hospital stay!
At least the festive poinsettia and mini Christmas tree are still in the clinic to brighten things up.
Since Christmas Eve Dad has been feeling kind of out of sorts. I blamed the too much eating but that wasn't exactly it. His PI, which is the number we watch to determine if anything is going wrong with his system and the pump, started reading way off. The numbers which are suppose to be 3.5 or above (usually Dad reads 5.4 - 5.5) were reading 1.9 - 2.3 ! At first he thought maybe his potassium was off so we had that checked and it came back a-ok on Christmas Eve day. He was very pale and did not look like himself, but we couldn't figure out what was wrong. We called the doctors, they called back...this went on for three days. The worst part was they told us before this morning if he wasn't dizzy or anything to just ignore the numbers! These numbers are what they have been telling us to watch and now that they are off they tell us just ignore them is you are not feeling dizzy or lightheaded!!! Today was different he was beyond dizzy. Finally this morning they said they wanted him to come in! It took three attempts to get down the stairs. He would get so dizzy he would just sit down. At least if he fell over from a sitting position it would be easy for Mom and I to get him back up. We packed up the car knowing full well that they were going to admit him once they saw him.
We got there and right away they knew something was off. The good news is the echocardiogram came back ok and the pump is functioning fine. They lowered the speed to give the heart time to fill and then push the blood out, this should help some of his numbers. They are still concerned though because he is also anemic. They ran some tests and think he may have a bleed in the upper GI region. Tomorrow they are going to do an endoscopy to determine if there is a bleed, and if there is, if they can clamp it.
We are looking at a fun filled minimum three day stay. They are trying very hard not to give him a transfusion because it can introduce antibodies into his system that are not his own and when getting a transplant this can come into play. He would be dealing with more antibodies than just his own. I asked if we could donate blood. I figured that one of my brothers or I had to be a match. They told us that sometimes relative blood isn't always a perfect match. Plus, our blood would have to be screened and there isn't enough time to do all of this if he needs the blood tomorrow. So I am hoping that they find a small bleed, clamp it off and his hematocrit goes up. If they do not find a bleed they have another theory.
The LVAD can cause the blood to break down. Picture this, water going through a rotor. Into the water, add drops of colored oil. The liquid running through the rotor time and time again, will cause the oil to begin to break into smaller drops becoming less efficient. This is what could be happening to his blood. The blood is going thorough the pump and being broken up making it less able to get to the parts of the body where it is needed.
Dr Stevenson came in and said his dizziness and overall feeling bad is probably due to the fact that he is anemic, his blood pressure was too low and he was very dehydrated. There is a fine line that he treads with hydration and potassium levels. They want him dry enough to prevent the congestive heart failure symptoms yet not so dry that it depletes his potassium and also dehydrates him.
More tests followed by more waiting are in store tomorrow. I am just hoping for answers and solutions.
Tomorrow we will hopefully have some more answers. We are looking to not spend the new year in the hospital so please keep up the prayers and positive thoughts. Here's to a better tomorrow, for today was a pretty bad day :(
Until tomorrow,
Laurie
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