Sunday, September 19, 2010 8:44 PM, MDT

It has been a very busy last few days. Thursday morning Bill had a fever and was very disoriented, the fever was down in a hour or so and his head cleared considerably and he had a pretty good rest of the day.

Friday morning he was again very disoriented, he took a nap and woke up in much better state of mind. He talked to the OT about hockey and how to hold your stick. The afternoon he enjoyed being outside with Jalyn and I.
Since I am interested in doing in home dialysis, Bill needs a different catheter for dialysis access. They planned the surgery for Saturday morning. Bill had another fever so they postponed the surgery and decided to do dialysis on Saturday instead of Sunday. The surgery will take place on Monday sometime. It is a minor surgery but I am nervous anyway.
The doctor also decided to do an MRI on his brain to help determine why Bill's head seems to be so mixed up. Turns out he most likely has had a very small stroke. The doctor isn't sure why that would happen and wants to do another test to determine what exactly what happened and how to treat it. The doctor also thinks he may still be having lingering inflammation due to the meningitis. That may be contributing to his confusion as well and could be treated with an anti-inflammatory.
Sunday Bill had some good therapy and his diet has been advanced so he has more choices of foods! YAY I also was alowed to bring him home for a few hours. He did really well and was remembering his patio. He also ate some home cooking and seemed to enjoy it. Next time I bring him home it will be to stay, (I hope)

Monday, September 20, 2010 8:39 PM, MDT

Bill's surgery went well and he woke from the anesthesia quite well. The doctors and nursing staff at PVH were so kind to me when I  express my concerns and I believe they took good care of Bill during the procedure. I will probably know the results of the brain MRA tomorrow. I am wondering if he had had a small stroke earlier as well.

Thursday, September 23, 2010 8:51 PM, MDT

The MRA came back normal. Apparently the stroke was just a rogue blood clot going to the brain. Bill has had a good couple of days, today he played hockey again and was "dribbling" the hockey puck(ball) down the hallway. That took a lot of coordination for him.

We will be bringing Bill home soon. That makes me both happy and scared. But, I think that he will do well at home.

Keep us in your prayers we still have a very long road to go.

I now know that this is the beginning of the end. I think it is good that I didn't know that he was dieing. I would not have had the hope that I did. The staff was very hopeful that he would do well at home as well. If we knew that he was dieing would he have been allowed to stay at the hospital? Would I have been forced to take him home or a nursing home? I don't know for sure but I am pretty sure that he wouldn't have been able to stay in rehab. With his needing dialysis it would have been difficult to take him home. My decision to take him home was made with the idea that he would improve, not get worse. So, if I knew that he wasn't going to improve I don't know what I would have done. It was difficult sometimes to get Bill to cooperate because (I know now because of him having strokes) he was confused and sometimes didn't know were he was or what was going on. Getting him to dialysis may have been nearly impossible at times so where would we have gone if we knew?

It was very strange that at times his mind was good and others not good at all. I would like to know why? I think the doctors may not even know the whys. Maybe some day I will get the chance to talk to the doctor and ask him. Not that it really makes any difference. It would just be my curiosity. The fevers were never explained either.

Bill knew he was home those times that I was allowed to take him home and he did really good then. He was very cooperative and it did not seem like it would be hard to bring him home. I think it made him happy to come home, even if he didn't remember it the next day.

 

The surgery that Bill had that day made me very nervous. I am not sure that Bill knew what was going on and I was scared of the anesthesia and what it may do to his mind. It turns out that it seemed to clear it considerably. He seemed to know where he was and what was going on. I mentioned this to his nurse and they saw the improvement too. I have no idea what that means now or if it means anything. It just gave me some hope.

 

I think that I was very naive about what it would take to bring Bill home and care for him. I just realized as I write this that everyone, including the doctors, thought that he would improve and get better. I was going with that I guess. So things would get easier over time. Also I was very tired of the hospital and the schedule was starting to wear on me. I just couldn't keep it up. It was also very, very hard on Jalyn. I had asked the nursing staff how much longer they thought that Bill would have stayed if I had not pushed for taking him home, and they said probably only a week longer. If I had not pushed to take him home he would not have gotten to go home. He would have had the stroke in the hospital and never gotten home. Sad