So how do you continue to ask for prayer over and over again without feeling like some greedy prayer monger? You just humbly ask and keep asking on behalf of your dear son. We are praying that the Lord will be merciful and that He would give great wisdom to the doctors and nurses caring for Dan. Let's get this problem solved! Patience for all of us. Hope! Encouragement. Blessings to all of you from our LORD God. As we near Passover and recount the story of our deliverance from Egypt and its ultimate fulfillment in our deliverance from sin through our Passover Lamb of God, Yeshua (Hebrew) Jesus (English), we offer the sacrifice of praise to our God and King.
Dan and Ashley's last 2 blogs, both on Thursday March 25:
Back up
Approximately an hour after Dan blogged last night, we figured out something was going wrong.
His belly pain was coming back, his stomach felt full and he just couldn't comfortable. Over the course of a couple hours, Dan was vomiting and having terrible back and abdominal pain. The on-call doc got paged, she ordered an x-ray and checked him out. The x-ray came back mostly normal, though all his intestines looked a tiny bit distressed (mild ileus). The pain got worse and since the resident had ordered oral pain meds, he threw up any relief he might get. We called the nurse again, she saw how sweaty and miserable he was and came back with a large dose of morphine. Since then, Dan has been mainly sleeping. It was a terrible night.
This morning, McGreeky came in looking pretty disappointed, but not as much as Dan. He said it looked like the solid foods were a little much for his intestines and pushing it anymore could result in another obstruction. He wants to give the bowels a break today...thus, back to NPO and TPN. Dan was relieved that an NG isn't necessary today, though it's always a possibility if this continues. McGreeky and the team are pretty sure this isn't another obstruction but just distress on the bowels. He'll be starting Dan on a couple new meds (Reglan and erythromycin) to help the GI system get moving again, but we have to monitor him carefully. If he does have an obstruction, these meds would make it worse. If no obstruction, they help the situation. We're always walking a fine line here.
Dan will be watched today and if the pain continues, will have a CT tomorrow to make sure nothing is out of place. Additionally, the pain he is having in his back could be related to his pancreas, so he'll be having some extra labs to rule out pancreatitis.
This time yesterday, McGreeky said Dan could have his PICC removed and go home today as long as food stayed settled all day. Now, we're back to having no clue when discharge will be. As frustrating and disappointing as this is, I'm just glad it happened before we left the hospital. McGreeky told us that most obstruction patients go home when they can tolerate liquids, but with Dan, he wanted to be extra cautious and watch him progress through solids. Thank goodness, he decided to keep him a little longer than normal.
So, now we back up and wait a while. This could be only a set back of a day or two, or this could keep Dan here a lot longer. Only God knows what is in store for us.
After one of the best days we've had since January, that was one of the worst nights on record.
Prayer Requests:
* Dan's bowels calm down and do not become obstructed again
* That this is simply a matter of eating too much too soon
* That the meds help
* No more pain
* No need for more invasive procedures (NG, surgery, etc)
* Ability for Dan to be able to progress through a diet again soon
* Home for Easter (only a week or so away!)
* Creative clinical hours for me to make up this week
* Total healing for good!
* NO MORE COMPLICATIONS
NG 2
Two updates in one day? That hasn't happened in a while. Today it is necessary.
Last night was awful. Thanks to exhaustion and 4mg of morphine, Dan slept until almost 1pm this afternoon. He obviously needed the rest. When he finally got up and moving, his pain kept him from walking around much. The belly pain got better as the day went on, but never really went away. The two meds he got put on ended up making him sick...so, we got the doctor to ditch those. We also convinced the doctor to order an x-ray for tonight instead of waiting for the morning. As we explained to McGreeky how Dan's symptoms had progressed throughout the day, he agreed with our thought that this was his obstruction returning. Accordingly, he wanted to get a jump-start on taking care of the problem.
While we waited, Jamie made a surprise visit since she was taking the exchange students to San Francisco. She brought us fruit and gifts from Israel. Very fun!
Unfortunately, the x-ray did warrant some concern. As the on-call resident is quite busy tonight, the only detail we got on the results was that his abdomen looks a little distended and the team wants to decompress the bowels before any obstruction gets worse. So, Dan got his 2nd NG tube inserted about an hour ago. The nurse was awesome and made the experience much less traumatic than the previous NG placement by the resident. We're awaiting x-ray confirmation of proper placement before Dan gets hooked up to suction again. Hopefully, this NG won't need to be in place as long as the last.
Luckily, Dan isn't feeling too bad tonight. Before the NG got placed, his nausea and pain were very minimal and sometimes, not even there. Perhaps, this will mean a quicker resolution of the obstruction, as the doctors caught it early. On the other hand, McGreeky is going to be even more cautious regarding advancing Dan's diet. Surgery is what we want to avoid.
Tomorrow, the plan is for a gastroenterologist to take a look at Dan's case (at McGreeky's request) to make sure nothing is being missed in his care. Also, Dan will have a CT to see the extent of this obstruction. Hopefully, by tomorrow evening we will have a more solid plan for Dan.
Let it be known, I have never seen a patient endure so much, have so many setbacks and still find the resolve to laugh and smile. Dan is honestly the most amazing man I have ever met, and no, I am not biased.
Prayer Requests:
* Complete resolution of obstruction without need for surgery
* Wisdom for the doctors
* Encouraging news from the CT
* Passing of gas very soon
* Short period of NG necessity
* Comfort and rest for Dan (despite NG)
* Wisdom for me to know when to go to school
* Ability for Dan and I to celebrate Easter at HOME
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