One happy girl

She hasn't left his side for a second.

He's home

Fingers crossed

It's rumored Mike's coming home tomorrow....

At first I didn't really think much of it when he told me Dr. Neel said it to him this morning. But when I was at the hospital this afternoon, both the nurse and the physical therapist mentioned it. It's written in his chart. So I am keeping my fingers crossed that nothing goes wrong or flares up overnight.

He had his knees drained Monday to ease the problem from gout. So he's been moving more. He's eating more and talking more. All of which are good things.

It will be so nice to get him home. It's been a long 17 days.

Slow going

I had my hopes up that Mike might be getting home Monday, but of course, something else has come up. Dr. Neel said if he spent Saturday and Sunday out of bed and moving around and eating, he would be ready to go home.

Well, he's getting better on the eating part. But now he has gout in his left knee and he can't move. He's in a lot of pain from it. They are giving him some steroids and pain medication. If it's not better tomorrow, they'll bring in a rheumatologist to see what they can do. They think it's a result of all the fluids and medications he's had over the past two weeks building up around his joints.

But aside from that, he's really doing well. His blood counts are normal, the kidney doctor has stopped coming by because that's all normal now, and they stopped the nutrition in the IV. He's also talking now, which is nice.

As soon as the knee is taken care of and he can get back on his feet, he'll be coming home. It really is always something, isn't it?

What day is this?

Seriously, I'm losing track. Mike has been in the hospital for 11 days now. It seems like a year. He has reached that stage where he just wants to get the hell out of there. And I can't blame him. Since he's been there, he's not had more than two hours of sleep at a time. Nurses and doctors are constantly in his room, checking his blood pressure, changing IVs, bringing pills or making him try to sit up. He just wants to come home so he can get some rest.

So he is on a feeding tube, which is really just an IV. Nothing down his nose, so that's good. In the meantime, he's slowly starting to eat actual food: yogurt, Jell-O and grapes. I don't even want to think about how much he weighs.

He's also getting some physical therapy to help him regain his strength. They've been doing leg and arm exercises and getting him to walk a little around his room. He's still weak and very tired.

But I'm hoping that we are getting closer to getting him home. I'm going to ask Dr. Neel in the morning what he needs to see happen before Mike can be released. Maybe that will give us something to work with as well as a time frame.

I hope it's soon. I forget what our normal life looks like. I'm missing so much with my daughter. The other night I got home just as it was time for bed, and I wanted to tuck her in and she said "No, mama. Nana tuck me in." When I'm at the hospital with Mike, I'm feeling so guilty about not being with her. And when I'm with her, I'm worrying myself sick about what is going on wih Mike. I'm ready for this to be over.

I'm so grateful that Sue is here now. And I'm grateful for my mom doing my laundry yesterday. And I'm grateful for a good friend bringing us some yummy white bean chicken chili. And I'm grateful for Starbucks for keeping me fueled.

Road to recovery?

That's what Dr. Neel said this morning about Mike. Still having a hard time believing it. He's talking a little more and starting to sit up some, but is still very weak.

There has been some talk about bringing in a physical therapist to help Mike start to regain his strength so he can come home. I can't believe he's been there nine days now. It's all starting to blur together.

I took Julia to see him Tuesday evening. He was very happy to see her. And she was very happy to see him.

But the big issue for me right now is Mike's lack of eating. The doctors and nurses told him he needed to drink three Ensures a day and three of these icky-tasting protein shots since he won't eat. This was after the threat last week from the dietician of a feeding tube.

Well, here it is five days later and he's barely drinking two Ensures a day. It is a constant struggle all day long to get him to drink them. He's so mad at me for pushing but I don't care. I don't know what it's like to be as sick as he is, but I do know that he will never get better or regain his strength if he doesn't eat.

I'm beginning to think they should have given him the feeding tube. I'm going to see what Dr. Neel thinks about it. I just want him to come home.

Good numbers

I wanted to do an early post today because I left things last night pretty sour. While Mike still feels like crud and is still weak, his white cell counts are back to normal and some of the other things like the kidneys, etc. are improved as well.

Dr. Neel was very happy this morning. He said the light at the end of tunnel is near. Things should start to pick up.

Although I'm still having a hard time reconciling what the doctor is saying with how Mike looks. I'm a very impatient person.

However, he is reading the newspaper as I type and they want him to try to sit in a chair sometime today. I think I may bring Julia in this afternoon.