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... and the babies all got away
Aug. 2nd, 2008 04:39 pmMy poor Frog's health is such that a week in the hospital really doesn't count as a big emergency any more. We've been to MoBap so often that the people in the cafeteria check-out ask me if i work there when I buy my dinner.
Two weeks ago, our A/C had been out for several days (took a week to get it fixed--blower fan needed a mounting bracket and the first guy who said he'd fix it instead of trying to sell us a new blower for several hundred more didn't deliver when he said he would), and we weren't all that surprised when he felt bad enough to call a doctor and hit the ER. It was a little disconcerting that he didn't improve very fast, and stayed a week, but it didn't seem that out of the ordinary. And it didn't seem too unexpected that he was worn out, and having trouble remembering things, like his computer password and how to operate the television controller after we got him home.
I still went out for the evening, thinking he just needed to rest in his own bed. However, he was still awake when I got home, but neither reading nor playing on the computer--just lying there with the light on, tired but unable to sleep. And then, later that morning,
Frog: Don't I have some babies to take?
Mouse: Babies?
Frog: Yeah, I'm supposed to take babies with my breakfast, but then there was a fire, and the babies all got away.
Mouse: I'm calling 9-1-1.
Long story shortened, they admitted him again because he was too weak to stand up at all--and continued to have trouble connecting to us linguistically, even though he knew where and when he was, and all those easy questions--he just didn't know WHY he was there.
Since then, they tried to get him started on dialysis, since he spends a lot of time not breathing from fluid build-up, and can't seem to keep his sodium intake low enough to keep it off unless he's eating the hospital renal diet, only to find that the A-V fistula the surgeon told us was ready to use, is a dud (Frog: The quack blew it. Doctor's chorus: It happens like that often enough, but we'll send you to a different surgeon we like at Barnes--later).
That meant installing a chest catheter so they can dialyze him, because they really, really wanted an MRI with contrast dye (which is bad for the body, and must be dialyzed out immediately in kidney patients), to follow up the CAT and uncontrasted MRI that showed some edema in the left temporal lobe and a suspicious area they couldn't get a good look at.
They got their contrast MRI this morning, and the neurosurgeon says there seems to be a tumor. He was relaying the report he got, since he's out of town, but Monday morning, he'll come in and look and talk to us, and probably try to get the thing examined/biopsied/whatever sometime that day. It could be any number of things, some benign, some not. They'll probably just use a sedative for the surgery itself , so it shouldn't be too hard on him. It's just that it IS, after all, brain surgery.
And the unknown thing inside, of course.
Two weeks ago, our A/C had been out for several days (took a week to get it fixed--blower fan needed a mounting bracket and the first guy who said he'd fix it instead of trying to sell us a new blower for several hundred more didn't deliver when he said he would), and we weren't all that surprised when he felt bad enough to call a doctor and hit the ER. It was a little disconcerting that he didn't improve very fast, and stayed a week, but it didn't seem that out of the ordinary. And it didn't seem too unexpected that he was worn out, and having trouble remembering things, like his computer password and how to operate the television controller after we got him home.
I still went out for the evening, thinking he just needed to rest in his own bed. However, he was still awake when I got home, but neither reading nor playing on the computer--just lying there with the light on, tired but unable to sleep. And then, later that morning,
Frog: Don't I have some babies to take?
Mouse: Babies?
Frog: Yeah, I'm supposed to take babies with my breakfast, but then there was a fire, and the babies all got away.
Mouse: I'm calling 9-1-1.
Long story shortened, they admitted him again because he was too weak to stand up at all--and continued to have trouble connecting to us linguistically, even though he knew where and when he was, and all those easy questions--he just didn't know WHY he was there.
Since then, they tried to get him started on dialysis, since he spends a lot of time not breathing from fluid build-up, and can't seem to keep his sodium intake low enough to keep it off unless he's eating the hospital renal diet, only to find that the A-V fistula the surgeon told us was ready to use, is a dud (Frog: The quack blew it. Doctor's chorus: It happens like that often enough, but we'll send you to a different surgeon we like at Barnes--later).
That meant installing a chest catheter so they can dialyze him, because they really, really wanted an MRI with contrast dye (which is bad for the body, and must be dialyzed out immediately in kidney patients), to follow up the CAT and uncontrasted MRI that showed some edema in the left temporal lobe and a suspicious area they couldn't get a good look at.
They got their contrast MRI this morning, and the neurosurgeon says there seems to be a tumor. He was relaying the report he got, since he's out of town, but Monday morning, he'll come in and look and talk to us, and probably try to get the thing examined/biopsied/whatever sometime that day. It could be any number of things, some benign, some not. They'll probably just use a sedative for the surgery itself , so it shouldn't be too hard on him. It's just that it IS, after all, brain surgery.
And the unknown thing inside, of course.
