Can It Get Any Worse? Unfortunately It Can, Part 2

I don’t care what anyone says, women have a special intuition, especially when it comes to their loved ones. This was proven to me last evening. It began early Sunday morning. Don had had a rough night. No sleep, having to get up every few hours with diarrhea, nausea and pain.  Sunday was our first day and two nights without any Home Health help. I wasn’t too nervous about dealing with the feeding pump and tube because I had been doing it with HH supervision for a couple days. However, Don’s overnight decline DID concern me. We have been weighing him every morning since he was released from the hospital, something the hospital only did when we requested it. Sunday morning he had lost 2.5 pounds overnight. This was after a day of eating more orally than he had since coming home! This meant he had last almost 40 pounds since October 30!! This concerned me. Sunday afternoon he developed a new pain in his right side. He took a pain pill for the first time since home. Another concern. I told him that I thought he should go to the Emergency Room. He wasn’t sure so I called the HH nurse on call. She  hem hawed around and said she would call her boss. I said that was fine but I was going to call an ambulance to take him to our local ER. She disagreed and thought I should load him into our car and take him to Wichita. We were in the middle of a statewide blizzard/whiteout! It would have taken me hours to thaw out car doors, clean off windows and then try to get him into the car without both of us falling on the ice and breaking a hip. I told her that WAS NOT going to happen. I was calling an ambulance.  I did this after hanging up.

It turns out there was something very wrong. Don had a very long, complicated surgery which involved cutting out parts of various organs and intestines and then reconnecting everything back up. The junction between one of the organs and the colon was leaking into his abdomen. He also has an abscess on his liver. He had to get back to Wichita and to the surgeon that did his surgery. This meant a 60 mile trip on roads that were treacherous in all places and closed in some places due to multiple vehicle accidents. I wasn’t able to go and didn’t have the nerve or skill to follow in my car. Zach, my grandson, was on these roads trying to get home for church at Wichita. (He stayed late to help with church problems related to the storm.) My stepdaughter Mikki offered to take me but I wasn’t going to put her in danger also. So I called the Sheriff’s Office and asked dispatch to call me when the ambulance checked out at the hospital so that I would know they made it safely. (It helps to work for the S.O.) I am awaiting word on what they can do or have done to correct the problem. Prayers are still welcome!