Sunday Update

Sorry it has taken me so long to update today. It has been a crazy morning. But let me back up to last night. Right at shift change (7:00), Alex told me he felt like he was running a fever so we checked and his temp was 101.5. We are trying to use medication to treat his fever pretty sparingly because he can’t have Tylenol and ibuprofen can increase bleeding. We got him settled and we both were in bed by 9:00. We slept well for a good chunk of the night again, but sometime early this morning (maybe around 4), I felt the nurse lay some extra blankets on me. Alex’s temp was back up to 103. Whenever he runs a temp they lower the AC as low as it can go. I literally have about 6 blankets on my bed now.  We slept some more.
Fast forward to this morning. His hemoglobin has dropped significantly again. (For my medical friends it was 14.9 on admission and is 7.1 now). Surgery was the first team by. They are watching closely. With the dropping blood counts and fevers, there is a strong possibility that he has a slow bleed somewhere. Alex’s complex history confuses the picture a bit because there are other scenarios for both the blood count and the fevers. So the plan is to transfuse him and see if counts fall again. If they do they will order a CT scan and possibly take him back to the OR to find and stop the bleeding. If there is a slow bleed it can cause a pocket of infection which would explain the fevers. They are encouraged because he “looks good”, but everyone is aware that that can sometimes be deceiving with Alex and that he can tank pretty quickly. So he is being watched closely.

The hospitalist came by shortly after and was in agreement with the plan. She is also checking blood cultures again, his clotting numbers and has order blood counts to be checked after transfusion and then again tomorrow morning. That should give us a good picture of what we are dealing with.

We haven’t seen Dr, O yet but I know he is watching and aware. A duplicate order got put in for the blood and no one could figure out what happened. Turns out Dr. o saw his labs and ordered blood. It makes me feel better to know that he is watching and on top of things.  I was originally told that his pancreatitis lab was significantly worse this morning, but was then told that it wasn’t checked. So I am unsure, but I do know that we are checking it again tomorrow.

We just started his first transfusion. He will get a second unit when this unit is done.

Thank you for checking on us and praying for us.
Ali