As many of you know we have had a bit of a set back.\u00a0 On Monday night Doug went to the dentist who is in Covington (where his parents live).\u00a0 He ended up staying there for the evening because he has been feeling tired, weak and had been vomiting.\u00a0 The doctor earlier on Monday told him the vomiting was probably due to the high volume of dead tissue at the back of his throat that he has been swallowing.\u00a0 Doug’s pain was steadily getting worse as well, so he increased the dose of the fentynl patch from 75mcg to 100mcg.<\/p>\n
Doug ate some pudding and two glasses of chocolate milk at his parents house that night, switched out the patch from 75 to 100 (the patches get changed every 3 days and his expired on Monday night).\u00a0 He went to bed as usual and planned on getting up at 6am to get ready for radiation at 7am.\u00a0 His mom got up shortly after 6 and noticed the lights were not on in his room, so she went to wake him up.\u00a0 She was not able to rouse him, and ran to get his dad.\u00a0 Neither of them could wake him, he was unconscious, had white fluid running out of his mouth and was having trouble breathing.\u00a0 (I am told he sounded like he was gargling) 911 was called and he was admitted to Newton Medical Center.\u00a0 The intubated him (put him on a respirator) and gave him Narcan to wake him up from the Duragesic (fentynl) patch.\u00a0 He apparently woke up and then had a violent projectile vomit episode which required them to take the tube out and clean out his throat, re intubate him and knock him out.\u00a0 They suctioned out everything in the stomach.\u00a0 He was kept unconscious for the rest of the night and into the next day.\u00a0 I stayed with him in the ICU on Tuesday night, he would respond to my voice with head nods and hand squeezes occasionally.\u00a0 The next morning, he had a chest x-ray which came back clean and all his labs look good (his white blood cell count is high, which does indicate infection, but they had him on prophylactic antibiotics), so they took him off the respirator around 12:30.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He was confused about what happened and did not remember the previous day, but the medicine they gave him to knock him out was designed to give him amnesia since it is not a pleasant memory to have.\u00a0 It appears he feel into a deep sleep on Monday night, vomited in his sleep and then aspirated the vomit.\u00a0 This in turn caused respiratory distress which landed him in the ICU.<\/p>\n
Yesterday evening, the doctor came in and told him he could go to a regular room and go home in the morning, or go home now.\u00a0 Of course he wanted to go home now, which was not really what I would have wanted, but Doug can be a bit stubborn! \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 When we got in the truck to leave the hospital, we moved 5 feet in the parking lot and Doug had a good vomiting spell.\u00a0 Most of what comes out is phlem like stuff, which is good since you want to get that out of the lungs so it does not fester and become an infection, but concerning as well.\u00a0 The deal I had to make with him was if he vomited like he was doing before he went into the hospital, I was taking him right back to the hospital and he was not allowed to argue with me.\u00a0\u00a0 I did get him home last night and Dean helped me get him into the house.\u00a0 We got him showered, got his mouth cleaned up, flushed his stomach tube and lubed up his face and lips and put him to bed.\u00a0 He did have a few more episodes of phlem junk coming out this morning and he lost all the liquid Percocet (pain med) I gave him orally.\u00a0 So I gave him some more Percocet in the tube and have him resting right now.\u00a0 In a short bit, his mom and I will cart him up to his doctors to figure out what to do now.<\/p>\n
I want to post that of all the hospitals he could have gone to I am so glad he ended up at Newton medical center, the team there was outstanding!\u00a0 That is coming from a highly critical nurse who demands nothing but the best treatment for her husband! \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Thank you for all your prayers, we both really appreciate everyone!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As many of you know we have had a bit of a set back.\u00a0 On Monday night Doug went to the dentist who is in Covington (where his parents live).\u00a0 He ended up staying there for the evening because he … Continue reading