Get on outta here

Somebody broke out of Sanford hospital earlier this week.

The escapee was described as a little guy with grey hair. All reports indicate that he had a likeable demeanor and was well-mannered. The nursing staff was actually quite fond of him and are now being investigated as possible accomplices.

The man has now been identified as Lawrence Rudek from Dilwoth Minnesota. The hospital discharge papers have also been found and all pending charges have been dropped.

Meh meh meh

Grandpa is now residing at the Sanford rehab facility on South university drive. His room is spacious and lovely, and his special team of interior designers have really spruced it up again quite nicely. I'm also back in the area after a quick trip back to NY so please expect more regular blog updates. Tune in next update for a special episode of "Mystery Diagnosis"

In other news....

Lovie

Grandpa's best medicine

Sorry!!

Sorry guys! Were you thinking that I reached my journal limits like I did with my 6 year old pink ballerina journal and you had reached the end!??? Nope nope. Just a couple of busy days. When Grandpa is feeling better, boy there sure is a lot of stuff to do!!! Fix his sheets, comb his hair, take some pictures for the journal, talk to him about the toll bridge and listen to his argument about how the city should just buy the toll bridge so people don't have to pay every time they cross the bridge from Moorhead to Fargo. Tell him that maybe the nice man delivering communion doesn't really want to talk about the toll bridge and how the city should buy it so people don't have to pay every time they cross the bridge from Moorhead to Fargo. Srsly. Although the nice man did entertain the conversation for a bit.

Here are some Grandpa pics from today. He's got such an attentive bunch of ladies to tend to him (everyone always comments about all the ladies around grandpa and that beautiful picture in his room)

 Hair dresser Pammy-Jean

 Masseuse Patty-Rae

Eat yo food Grandpa

 Taking a stroll

Major news of the week.....Yesterday Grandpa was moved off of the intensive care unit!!!!!! WhooooHooooooo!! What this means, however, is that Grandpa's nursing care isn't as top of the line. Jodi kindasucksalot (no, that's not her last name, but it could be). On the ICU floor every nurse gets one patient (usually, at least. I think there are times that a nurse can share two). So grandpa's nurses were basically in his room 24/7. I've probably said this already, but it was amazing to see how much they genuinely cared about people. It was inspiring just being around them. And they sure got to enjoy his company. Bri, Grandpa's blonde nurse who took care of him the first couple of days when he was brought into the ICU and was incredibly sick requested him on one of his last days there. She was so impressed with how well he was doing, but she was kind of sad he would be leaving :( She said they all enjoyed him so much. We all made pretty good friends with the nursing staff in the ICU, I think it took us 45 minutes to actually leave the floor the other day because we were saying goodbye to the nurses and chatting with them on how well Grandpa was doing. We took a picture today of Grandpa holding a thank you balloon and tomorrow the sisters have ordered cookies for the floor which will be accompanied with that photo of gramps, it's pretty cute.

Even the nurses who weren't directly assigned to Grandpa miss him. Jamie one of the ICU nurses who helped Grandpa down for surgery saw me walking up to check on Grandpa in the dialysis unit today and stopped me to see what was up. I said he was SOOOOO much better so he came up with me to say hello to Grandpa. They are such great people.

So now....the nursing care leaves a little to be desired. He still gets some amazing nurses but there are a few that just kind of suck. You can tell right off the bat when that genuine human compassion element is lacking. It also makes Pammy-Jean's job a little more labor-intensive. Every time Jodi Kindasucksalot does something that we don't like we send nurse administrator pammy-jean in to set her straight. Meh meh meh.

All of Grandpa's blood work and tests are looking great. He's still doing the dialysis to help out his kidney function and also pull some of that extra fluid off of him. The only downside about dialysis is that it makes him cough for about an hour after the procedure, it's weird, we don't know why. Tomorrow we'll start thinking/talking about transferring Grandpa to a transitional rehab facility until he is good enough to go home. Below is a picture I brought in for Grandpa, I put in a caption: "I'll just wait here til you get better."

Miss Keagyn Lynn is also on the Grandpa-get-better cheering squad. She's doing a pretty good job. Too bad the little squirt isn't here herself so we could here that squeaky southern accent of hers! She'd also probably do a pretty good job of boss'n grandpa back to health.

Get better Grandpa, we lob you!

Marvelous Monday

Welp, Grandpa is back to himself. Besides the fact that he's in a hospital bed and still hooked up to a lot of tubes and other junk you wouldn't be able to tell he was ever sick. He's been joking with the nurses and chatting with family and resting every once in a while.

They got him out of bed again today and this time they put him in a chair to eat lunch, so he was upright for a good chunk of time. Bri, one of Grandpa's nurses who took care of him when he originally came in is back with him again today. She actually requested him :) The hospital staff really likes the guy; not hard to understand why. But Bri said they tend to hang on to patients they like longer, so I told Grandpa he can start being mean to them. I don't think that will happen.

He's been taken off the Levithen and Dubutomine (sorry i'm sure I'm getting the spelling horribly wrong -but whatevs), which were the two medications he was put on immediately to increase BP and help his heart pump more efficiently. It's excellent news that he no longer needs either of those two meds. His body is regulating pretty much everything on his own now. He's still on the continuous dialysis machine, but they think he'll even come off of that tonight or tomorrow at latest.

Once he's off this machine we'll get an idea on how his kidneys are functioning. He will be put on the normal dialysis, which only runs for 3-4 hours rather than continuously. There has also been a theory on the cause of all of this which was thrown out by the ICU doc but not agreed to by all of Grandpa's attending physicians.

The ICU doc thinks it may be Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy. I can't really explain this diagnosis because I wasn't in the room when the ICU doc was discussing this, but you can google it to get a better understanding. Usually it's caused by a major-stressor (which we can't really pinpoint in Gpa's case) but this causes the left ventricle of the heart to balloon, which results in several organs being impacted - in his case, most severely, the kidney. The onset of this condition is very acute and the patient also recovers pretty rapidly, with most of them having full recoveries.

However, the cardiologist who visited Grandpa this afternoon isn't as positive that Takotsubo is to blame. She doesn't really think the heart is the primary culprit because we didn't directly treat the heart and it resolved on it's own. Usually, if the heart is the reason for the underlying illness you would have to directly treat it to see a reversal and they didn't in this case. I'm not fully onboard with her logic but as long as Grandpa is getting better that is really all I care about.

I sat in his room for a while this afternoon as he slept. When he woke up he was pretty chatty and I had a fun conversation with him about pretty much everything. Later in the day as people were entering and leaving his room I overheard him explain to one of the nurses who everyone on the "wall of pictures" was. It was pretty cool to see. He's so proud of all of his peeps, just as proud as we are of him and his beautiful heart.

Sunday Funday

Today was A LOT better! Grandpa is back to his normal joking self. They were able to completely take him off of the bi-pap machine - which is good all around! We can communicate with him so much better today, which is probably why we're seeing his sense of humor come back so well.

So let's talk about heavy stuff before I share all of the fun stories from earlier today. Grandpa has been really sick and for a while it was pretty touch and go. As many of you know Thursday was pretty rough for all of us. Things have greatly improved but it's also emphasized the importance of having a conversation with Grandpa about what he wants. We did this today with him and I think all of us are in such a better place. Earlier today Grandma and Grandpa were talking about something that transitioned into a conversation about him being sick and what was going to happen. He knows that he's on the road to recovery but we also needed to discuss what would happen if things got worse for some reason, or even later on down the road (hopefully years from now). All of the sisters were in there and Becca and I both eventually came too. The conversation went back and forth for a while and he stated that he did want to go home eventually. But a lot of things were still left to interpretation. And if you have any experience with these sisters you know that they sure interpret things differently :)  So Pam spoke with Heidi, who is Grandpa's fabulous nurse and asked Heidi to go in and talk to Grandpa on her own without all of us in there.

After Heidi spoke with Grandpa, she came into the family room and spoke to us. She said that she explained to him again that his condition is improving and that she wanted to clarify the talk he had with his family earlier today. She explained all of the machines he was on and he understood what they did and he wanted to stay on them all. She then asked if his heart were to stop for any reason would he like to be manually resuscitated or shocked. And he said no. This answer did not surprise us because this is similar to what he said when he was in the hospital back in November. He believes if his heart stops that means it's his time. She then asked if he had to be intubated because his lungs were unable to function properly if he would be okay with this? And he said yes, but only if the intubation were helping him. If his condition were to get worse than he would want that stopped. After Heidi came in to explain all of this she wanted to go back down to Grandpa's room with us and have this same discussion again with all of us. We walked down and spoke to Grandpa about this again and we also discussed what would happen with Grandma if he were not to come home. When Grandpa directed this question to Grandma she said Eventide, which is a nursing home in the area. He also discussed about them potentially going to a nursing home after he left the hospital. More than likely he'll go to some transitory care facility between the hospital and home or the hospital and a nursing home. Heidi also said that a case manager has been assigned to Grandpa and is already looking into these things so he shouldn't worry about which nursing home to choose, if they have openings, how much it would cost and all those other questions that go along with this process. Heidi said the case manager will handle all of these things and anwer any questions. But it may still be quite a while before he's actually discharged from the hospital.

We've been so thankful to have such a wonderful group of nurses taking care of Grandpa and Heidi has been really top notch. After this tough discussion and such a terrific job Heidi did of explaining everything to us, Vicki acknowledged how appreciative we were of her and thankful to have such good care. Then Vicki said "It's like you're one of us now!" Haha, we laughed and told Vicki that may not be such a good compliment. Heidi, said "no no - it is. The entire nursing staff has been talking about how wonderful your family is." And we said well you know why that is, that little guy in there and this little lady right here.

Okay, let's get to the good stuff. First of all we had to head to the hospital today with a note from Tucker. He's a little annoyed that all these peeps keep coming to his house and that guy that gives him treats is nowhere to be found.

 

Alrighty, let's get into some fun Grandpa stories. He's really been a hoot today. Mom and Pam made their typical early arrival to the hospital. When Grandpa asked where Grandma was my Mom told him that Vicki and Val were bringing her in, they were just getting her meds put together. So when Grandma made it into the hospital, Grandpa said "did you get your meds put together?" She looked at him a little surprised and said "How did you know that?" He said "I'm telepathic." That's when we realized that the old Grandpa was back. And things just progressed throughout the day.

When the respiratory therapist came in this afternoon to do a couple of swallow tests on Grandpa, she had him stick out his tongue and she said "say ahhhhhh for me," and Grandpa goes "ahhhhhh for me." The entire room broke into laughter, with the person respiratory therapist laughing the hardest. I don't think she expected someone in the ICU giving her a run for her money.

As a good indicator of how well he's doing overall with his health and mental status, Grandpa asked Pam what Dean was doing today and she said he was busy mowing the lawn. Then later in the day, after he had a nap he looks at her again and says "He's really mowing the lawn, huh?" He's also been given a spirometer, which is a plastic little machine which you blow into after surgery to help your lungs out. Heidi told us that Grandpa has been her best patient on one of these things.

Later in the day Grandpa was even able to order food and have his first meal in 6 long days. He had some tomato soup and scalloped potatoes. But he also had some very strict guidelines for eating because of everything he's been through. Heidi was helping him eat and she would give him three spoonfuls of tomato soup, one bite of potatoes and then he would have to cough and could then have a drink of water. She was following this routine very strictly and she was on the third spoonful of tomoato soup for Grandpa when he said "that's number two, right?" And she said, no that was number three. At which point, Grandpa smiled and she said "Larry, are you tricking me???" We all started laughing because Grandpa was trying to con more soup out of her.

The night nurse came on shift right before we left and she said "hi, Larry. Do you remember me?" He honestly replied, no. And she said, well that's probably because you were sleeping like a baby last night. To which he replied, "was I crying?" I think the night nurse was confused, but Heidi who already had a sense of Grandpa's humor started laughing pretty hard.

Also later in the day Heidi grabbed a few other nurses to help her position Grandpa toward the end of his bed. Auntie Pam was even able to help a bit. They slid him to the end of the bed and supported him while he was able to stand up. Heidi said she didn't necessarily want him to walk but to stand there for a bit and just move around. So Grandpa did a little dance. That's a good way to wrap the day, I think we were all dancing just a little on the way out tonight.

I'll sign off with a photo of Grandpa's mirror which is decorated with love from his fam.

Saturday

Saturday was more of the same. Grandpa was cognitively doing so well and really looking good. The color in his face was great. The downside is he had to be back on the bi-PAP machine. This is a breathing mechanism that fits over his eyes, nose and mouth and forces oxygen into his system. During Friday night he just had a mask on and his oxygen saturation levels dropped quite low. So they needed to put him back on this breathing machine. I guess it's similar to the mask people wear when they have sleep apnea, although those masks only cover the nose and mouth. I hope I never have sleep apnea and have to go on one of those machines. That would blow. Literally.

It's also difficult to understand Grandpa when he's got the mask on. It makes for an interesting scenario. He's mumbling through the mask but can actually hear us quite well because his ears aren't covered by the mask at all. So we hear quiet mumbling and in return shout back loudly. He's probably wondering why the hell we keep yelling at him.

We kind of hung around the hospital for most of the day and Grandma mentioned she wanted to go to church so the sisters brought her. Becca and I then headed up to Grand Forks for Grandpa Lester's 90th birthday! Our Dad cautioned that the roads were a little bad about 10 miles outside of GF, he failed to mention they were actually skating rinks. Becca did the driving because I was a little out of it from the all-nighter with Grandpa. We got up there to spend a little quality time with the bday boy and then head back before it became too dark. I slid over to sit next to Grandpa Lester during dinner and ask him how his day went. I asked him if he has shot any pool lately (since this is a favorite past time of his) and he said, what? "Did I shit on the pool???" Haha. Typical Lester.

When we got back to Fargo around 9 the ladies were back at our house eating Eric's delicious homemade stir fry. They had gone to church and then checked in on Grandpa for a couple hours before heading home. Before heading back to Dilworth Grandma was in the kitchen and said she felt a little sorry for Grandpa because no one had really been with him that evening and she didn't want to wonder where we were. Since we were both anxious to see him, Becca and I offered to go check in on him and maybe sit there for a while as he slept.

Grandpa's nurse this night was Ivan - from Chezcholovakia. He had a tiny bit of an accent which could also be interpreted as a speech impediment. But he was good. It's so phenomenal to witness the nursing staff in the ICU and the genuine care and compassion they give their patients. I've been so impressed. We sat for a while and then at one point Grandpa woke up and smiled when he saw us. They let him take the mask off for a while and we chatted for a bit with him. He asked about everyone and what they were doing. He asked about the weather. We told him it had already snowed quite a lot and it was supposed to snow again tomorrow and potentially blizzard on Monday. He wanted to know how our drive up to GF was and how Grandpa Lester was doing. We filled him in on the dinner and who was all there. Then I said what else do you want to know, I'll tell ya anything. He said I don't know, whatever you can tell me. We told him tomorrow was St. Patrick's day and there were a bunch of drunk Irish people in the streets and he asked if we were going to join them and we said no, that made us want to stay inside that much more. I asked him if he was feeling okay and was in any pain, or if the incision on his belly was bugging him. He said no, it wasn't and wanted to know again why they operated. I said it was because they were fairly certain that the cause of the sepsis was in his colon and they needed to go in and see it for themselves and potentially remove some of it if it were damaged. But they wound up not finding any infected colon. He said, well that's good then and I agreed. I said it was a little risky to open you up, but your body handled it very well. You were a little groggy yesterday but that was from the anesthetic and that was to be expected. I asked him if he knew what the blue machine was beside his bed and he said, yep that's the dialysis machine. Yep - and it's cleaning your blood, he said yes that he knew what it was doing. I said that the blood pressure medicine they gave him right away had also been reduced because his body was able to regulate that on his own now. He agreed that this was all good information. He said thank you several times and that he loved us much. We tidied up our stuff and said we would see him in the morning.

So to recap the day. Grandpa is improving and his tests are all looking better. But he is still a little frustrated with why he's so sick and in the hospital. But again, things could be a lot worse. Just imagine if you were a T-Rex.

Friday Recap

As promised, I wanted to share a couple of updates from Friday/Saturday/Sunday.

Friday:
So Grandpa had surgery on Thursday night, and as expected he was a little out of it on Friday during the day. In the morning when Mom and Pam came in the nurse informed them that he was pulling on some of the stuff and he took out his trach tube. Apparently he wanted the heck outta there. I don't blame him. He also said his family was worried about him. When P&P got there, they assured him that yes his family was worried about him but they were there now and things were turning around. He would accept their affirmations, but then a little later he was asking about a cell phone because he needed to call his family. So my Mom said, well Pam and I are here and Vick is bringing Grandma in a bit. Then he goes "well I'll use Vicki's phone when she gets here." Haha. Kind of funny, apparently he thought he had a better looking family somewhere else.

The whole day was kind of like this. He would be lucid for a while and understand things and then he would ramble about baseball or football. He was kind of in and out of sleep for a good part of the day. But the one thing that made me really happy is when Heidi the nurse was trying to reassure him about where he was she said "Larry, you had surgery yesterday and that is why you may be a little out of it, and also why you may have a little pain around your belly. But you're body is deciding to get better." We all liked hearing that from her.

We were all kind of in and out of the room on Friday. Although Grandpa was out of it for the most part, we were all feeling a little sense of relief. That things were turning around. He wasn't anywhere out of the woods or over the hump but they were definitely better than when he was the day he was brought in by ambulance.

Also of importance on Friday is the youngest sista made her way from the Louuuuuusiana bayous to the cold tundras of North Dakota. This was a bit shocking for her, as we still had about 20 inches of snow on the ground. Don't worry, we equipped her with the appropriate gear to handle the cold weather.

After she was set, we brought her to the hospital so she could check in on Gramps.

We had secured a nice spot in a family room on the third floor and we would all take turns sitting in with Grandpa. Obviously when he was asleep we would just sit in the chair and read or play on our phones. When he was awake we would chat with him a bit and eventually he would drift back to sleep. He was still kind of groggy and out of it on Friday night before we went back to the house for dinner. One of the nurses said that this is due to the fact that his kidney isn't functioning properly. The anesthetic isn't leaving his system as fast as it typically would in a healthy individual. We all know how loopy we can be after a surgery. Just google that crazy girl whose Mom filmed her after she had her wisdom teeth removed. She thought she was a student at hogwarts. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsld9K8z2Ns) or what about David after dentist??? That poor kid was loopier than a college frat guy after a case of beer. (http://www.youtube.com/v/txqiwrbYGrs)

Considering all things, Grandpa wasn't nearly as whacked out as those two. But we wanted to be sure to tell the nursing staff that should he become confused at all when we have left that they should call us immediately and someone would come back and sit with him. We went home and had lasagna. The sisters did what they do best and drank some wine, laughed and made fun of Pam. Vicki and Val eventually took Grandma home and tucked her into bed. We were all winding down for bed when my Mom came down the stairs saying she missed a call from Sanford. She called them back and as was expected he had woken up during the night and was a bit confused. As Mom was relaying this information to me, I asked her what in the world was wrong with her because SHE was acting like David after Dentist. "Oh, nothing. Just took some Nyquil." Seriously. What?? Oh, great. This should be fun.

I obviously drove. And dropped Becca and Mom off at the door which was closest to the elevators by Grandpa's room. I parked and when I walked in Grandpa was asking Mom why the heck he was in the cellar :( Mom said it's dark Dad and that may be why you feel like you're down in the cellar, but you're not. You're here in the hospital and we can turn a light on, but we're here with you and we'll just be over in these chairs if you need anything. I pulled a chair up to Grandpa's bed and put my hand on his arm while he slept for a bit. Becca and Mom sat in the two chairs by the wall and when I looked over to them...I saw something like this:

 



Becca and I determined it was time for mom to go take a nap in the family room down the hall. We sent her down there with a pillow and blankets. Becca pulled her chair up to mine so we could put our feet on each others chairs and we sat quite comfortably for a while. Grandpa would wake up every now and then and was reassured by familiar faces. I would stand up and help fix his breathing mask or tell him to keep resting and he would usually say "thanks, Rach." It was pretty clear the anesthetic was starting to wear off and Grandpa was starting to come back. Occasionally he would get frustrated or angry with feeling foggy or out of it. He said earlier that day and a couple times that night that he was confused. Well someone who knows they are confused indicates that his mind is fairing quite well. Whenever he would get frustrated or angry I would tell him to channel that anger and energy into telling the bug to take a hike, give it an eviction notice from your body. But you CANNOT be angry or frustrated with Larry. He acquiesced, closed his eyes and said "here I go." The nurse laughed and said "what did he just say?" when I told her, she said I think he's getting a lot better cognitively. She said just within the few hours she had been on her shift she had already noticed a difference.

About an hour or two later Becca ran down to the bathroom and then checked in on Mom. She said Mom was snoring so loud you could hear her down the hall. After another hour or so Mom came back into the room and we chatted with Grandpa a bit when he awoke. He was really with it and said we should go home and get some rest.

On our way out I thought I should maybe stay just in case he wakes up confused again, and I had also made some good progress on the blog and wanted to get a lot done before going to bed. So we made the plan for me to stay and then when Pam came back in the morning Eric could just bring me home. Becca and Charlie Sheen took off for the night.

I made good friends with the nurse on staff that night and we discussed Grandpa's condition. She had also been the nurse taking care of him when he was in the ICU in November and she remembered him. She really thought there was some sort of connection between these two events and we chatted for a while about possibilities. She also started to wean Grandpa off the Levathin, which is the blood pressure medicine they gave him when he came in because his BP was so low. This was good, it means he is now able regulate it on his own.

Next stop...Saturday

Quick Saturday update

Grandpa is resting really well and is no longer confused or wondering where he is. He's still on the continuous dialysis machine (which we've named Diane Alice Ess - because Grandma thought she needed a better name to remind her what the heck that was) And now, even the nurses are referring to the machine as Alice. The dialysis machine is doing some good work at cleaning out his blood and helping his kidney do it's job. His blood pressure is looking good and they are weaning him off the BP meds to see how he's able to regulate that on his own.

His nurses have been spectacular and given Grandpa such good care. They all just love him, I mean how can you not??? Yesterday as one of his nurses was cleaning him and fluffing his pillow he literally said thank you after every little move she made. By the time she was finished, I think he said thank you close to 35 times. She said he's the sweetest patient ever. Love him and his heart of gold.

Will give you another update later on.

Cheese and crackers please

So evening arrives and our wonderful nurse was prepping Grandpa for his surgery. We were also able to head down to the surgery floor with Grandpa and gave him a few kisses as we sent him on his way. We all crowded into the family waiting room and I quickly realized that playing this waiting game was not a strong suit of mine. So I convinced Becca that we needed to go home and bring some snacks back for people. It was around 7:30 and no one had really eaten since noon.

We headed home and I packed up some snacks while Becca hurriedly vacuumed and cleaned the guest room for Pam. We decided to kidnap Pam and confine her to the North Fargo home which is only 7 short blocks from the hospital and would allow P&P to head to the hospital should Grandpa need anything during the night. Becca's cleaning and I'm packing, then Eric thought with all the crackers I threw in the bag I should really bring some cheese. He helped cut the cheese (AHAHAHAA) and we packed that up as well.

We headed back and just as we arrived Surgeon Briggs had just left the family room. (every time I say his name I feel like I should salute or something. Surgeon Briggs and LIEUTENANT DAN, err Docta Dan). Mom said he came in and told them that he wasn't seeing anything through the scope or the laproscopic procedure which has a camera on the end. The camera allows him to view the colon to see if there is some kind of infection in there. He came back with the news that he wasn't seeing anything, and he needed their input as to what he should do next. Since he had already made a few incisions it wasn't that big of a next step to open his tummy up a little more to really see what's going on. Briggs would be able to actually see his colon, rather than through a camera lens.

The ladies thought that if we had come this far we should go a little further and see if Surgeon Briggs could see with his own eyes what the heck was going on. So as we returned things were semi-tense. But we laid out the crackers and cheese and began or waiting room picnic.

About 20-25 minutes later surgeon Briggs came back into the room. I think we all had mini-heart attacks as he walked in. And then we all went into full cardiac arrest as he struggled to find words. It appeared that Dr. Briggs was a little perplexed. He said, well I opened him up... and I, I didn't find anything. So we all just kind of stared at him blankly....He said his colon looks like a normal colon of a man Grandpa's age and there is no sign of infection.

We all sat there a little dumbfounded and listened to him as he struggled for words and as our mouths are full of crackers. I looked up at him and pointed to our picnic and said - "are you hungry???" and the ladies kind of chuckled but I was dead serious. I said you've worked pretty hard, what would you like. Again he kind of stood there is awkward silence looking at the cheese and crackers and he said... uh well, uh I would take a cracker. So I grabbed three and said of course, take anything you want!! Can I pack some stuff up for you?? Here take anything else you would like. And he's like "well I would take a piece of cheese I guess."  LOL! So I said here, take some sweets too, do you want this whole canister of these chocolates?? And he said, no but I'll take a few. Too funny. And he stood there for a while longer. Eric came at that time and told him to also take a piece of the white cheese so he did. And then Mom launches into a line of questioning about Docta Dan. "So, please tell us about Doctor Dan, is he single, how old is he? Oh and Briggs just loved this. He informed us that Dan was not married but he thought he may have a girlfriend who lived somewhere else. (Different zip codes though) He said Dan was a good guy, smart, would be a nice husband. Mom was pleased, oh but first she asked if he liked blondes or brunettes - apparently she can provide him with either. Maybe both? We could make the whole sister-wives things legit.

After he left we sat there and discussed the sitch. I think we all felt at least a little relieved that his colon was in good health and none of it would have to be removed. But this news also took us back to square one in figuring out what the culprit is. It also put Grandpa at some risk because surgery at this age is pretty major. But Briggs said his heart and all other organs tolerated it quite well. And he's really recovering from this surgery quite nicely. We waited for a while for them to bring him back up to his room so we could peak in on him and then give him a quick kiss and head home. He actually looked quite well. His color was really good, which was shocking.

We all headed home and discussed the days events. Eric was quite impressed with Mom's ability to channel a middle eastern mother. (Please read the next lines in a borat-eque voice) "You like my dottas, no? I give them to you. You see they have nice jewels. They make pretty wife. They come with a cow. This cow is no good - has no milk, but if you no like cow we give you goat."

We're also pretty sure that Briggs gave docta Dan the full download of this solicitation because just as Becca and I were entering the hospital this morning we passed Docta Dan in the hall and I think all of our faces went bright red. Awesome.

We were pretty certain that Grandpa would sleep hard after the surgery, which he did. When Mom and Pam arrived on Friday morning he was a bit confused but they reassured him that he had just had surgery and was recovering so things may be a little foggy for a while but that was just temporary.

Friday was pretty good. I'll share some more Friday stories in a bit. Peace. In the middle east.

 

Tuesday/Wednesday

After a couple of hours in the ER, they finally moved Grandpa to a room in the ICU. He had an assortment of doctors come for a visit. There was an infectious disease dude (who made the mistake of ticking Mom off), there was a cute little Indian Nephrologist (kidney doc), there was surgeon Briggs with his cute attending surgeon, Dr. Dan. Dr. Teezen was the main ICU primary care doc who had the fun job of managing this crew.

The initial conclusion by several of the doctors was ichemtic colitis. They believed that the source of the sepsis was in his "gut" - apparently that's a medical term. This would probably explain why Grandpa was so distended in his belly and was so uncomfortable. Although there was some dispute among the doctors. I guess docta dan (sorry - I can't help but say it like leutinant dan), never thought ichemic colitis was the main culprit.

So most of Wednesday has now passed and Becs and Rach make it back to Fargo around 10:30 pm. Dad picked us up and brought us home. Tucky was very happy to see his girls. And then very upset to see his girls put on jackets again so quickly. We made another trip out to the airport to collect the short medical one (Pam) at 11:30 and then went to Grandma and Grandpa's house where Vick was taking good care of Grandma.

Thursday morning we all shuffled back to the hospital to begin a day that would quickly become very draining. When Grandpa awoke from his morning nap he was pretty confused. He had no recollection of how he got to the hospital and what happened to him to make him so sick. Mom and Pam explained things to him but he was still very aggitated that he didn't quite know what happened. Becca and I peaked into the room and got a lovely smile from him.

Then we had a visit from Dr. Briggs (is that his name?? I feel like it may not be, but i'm going to keep saying it). Dr. Briggs was talking about the colitis and how going in to see what the colon looked like would be full of risk but was the only way we could determine the main cause of the sepsis and hopefully give us something to try to fix.

Briggs said the best outcome would be for him to go in and find a piece of the colon that was in bad shape and be able to remove that without further damage to the rest of the colon. But there were a couple other options where the result wouldn't be as good. He said he could go in and find that there was no way to save the entire colon. In that case he would have to forego any type of removel and just sew him back up. The other possible outcome was to find the colon in "semi-bad shape" where a lot of it looks bad, but there is no clear line between the bad and the good. In that case he would have to do the same. So basically he was saying there was a 1 in 3 chance of a good outcome. But we still felt it was necessary for us to find some answers.

So after the Briggs visit we had another visit from Teezan (the main guy). I'm sure he has a title but I can't remember it and so I'll continue to call him the main guy. That was also a bit rough. He basically said that if we didn't do anything, he'll only get worse. I think several of the doctors brought up the fact that he was 88 and blah blah blah, something about age, blah  blah. I kind of wanted to yell STFU (sorry Grandma and whoever is reading this and doesn't know what that means...it's just like saying "please be quiet" but not so nicely). Anyway - I was pretty sick of hearing that from these d-wads because they have NO IDEA who Grandpa is and the fact that this guy has a good 10 years left (in my semi-medical opinion) and they shouldn't talk about age, because it's relative.

So rough day to say the least. The plan that evening was to go ahead with a scope or laproscopic procedure where Dr. Briggs goes in and makes a couple small incisions and inserts a camera so he can see the bowels to determine if there is this colitis stuff. They decided that the scope/exploratory surgery would be first in line and then they would start Grandpa on the dialysis machine right after that to help his kidney out and get his blood cleaned out because his toxicity levels were quite high.

Will go into detail abou the surgery in the next post....

The shindig

So the story goes that this all started on Tuesday. Actually it was more like Monday night. Grandpa became sick during the night with chills, vomiting, diarrhea. Fun stuff. On Tuesday morning, Grandma called Mom (aka Pat. aka the oldest sister. aka - okay I'll stop now). Mom came over and Grandpa's temp was really low. I believe it was 93. They thought the thermometer was not reading it properly. But it was. Grandpa was just cold. His lips were kind of a blue tint and he was really weak. Mom called the hospital and they told her to send him in via ambulance because they wouldn't be able to transport him themselves if he was so weak.

Grandpa knew he was pretty sick and went along with this plan, or just didn't feel like arguing with Pat. He arrived at the hospital and they started running a myriad of tests (whoa, big word alert. Sorry I'm feeling a little doogie houserish apparently. How the F do you spell doogie?). Anyway...we were told many a different story, some have been disproven and some are just hanging out there as theories, yet to be confirmed or disproven. Initially we were told that Grandpa's blood pressure was dangerously low, he possibly had a heart attack, had internal bleeding, pneumonia, sepsis, and his kidney was failing. (Kidney - remember Gpa only has one). So things were kind of scary at this point. Mom and Grandma were kind of clinging on to each other for dear life. After the ER doc put the fear of God in mom, she had a nice conversation with Grandpa's nurse who made her feel a little better. She explained that the kidney failure was acute - which means it's not permanent or forever, it's likely the result of an underlying illness. Mom felt at least better enough to head home for a quick change of clothes and a fam update.

Just so you don't have to go searching for the latest conclusions on the above scary diagnoses - I'll give you a quick rundown. As of now they say there was actually no internal bleeding, they don't think he had a heart attack, his lungs sound clear - which means no pneumonia. However, Grandpa's blood pressure was incredibly low his kidney was failing and his heart was not working at full capacity, all of which are symptoms of sepsis.

That is basically what went down and how he wound up in the hospital. I'll recap the last few days in the next post.

Hey Grandkids....has Grandpa ever told you that you should really be keeping a journal? Probably only 38 times....in the last 2-3 months. Grandpa has been after me for YEARS about keeping a journal. I've tried a couple of times but then I go back and read my "entries" and laugh. And then after three days I get too busy and forget about it. The funniest stuff is if you can find one of those dinky journals that you started when you were five or six years old. I had a pink ballerina one, and it had a lock on it. It wasn't too hard to crack. And I quickly discovered I had about the same commitment to journals as a five year old as I do now. There were three pages filled out with various complaints about my youngest sister and then nothing. Ha!

So, Grandpa..... HERE IS MY JOURNAL! And how fitting that it's going to be all about you! I'll start this journal out with updates on Grandpa's health and once we get him fixed up and back to life on the ranch, I may deviate to other topics. But I plan on keeping the title, because I kind of like it and am pretty proud of it :) and him.

Alrighty. Next post will be a rundown on how this shindig started and will recap the last few days.