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.

Up and down

It's starting to seem like as soon as I write Mike's making some progress, the next day he's feeling like crap again. And so it is with today. This morning, he was a little more alert and active, reading the newspaper again.

I went home to give my mom a break and see Julia for a bit and when I came back he was again barely speaking or able to move. A nurse described him as "profoundly weak."

I was really hoping today he would start feeling better. His white blood cells are up to 2.9. They were .20 just two days ago. So that is good.

I just want him to feel better. I am nearly losing my mind so I can only imagine how he must be doing. I mean, how long can this go on? I just want our normal little life back.

Baby steps

Mike is still weak and unable to get out of bed, but I'm seeing small signs of improvement. And the best thing of all -- he got to see Julia today.

First the medical update: There were a ton of doctors in this morning. My sister-in-law Lisa was there so I could spend some time with Julia. Basically, they are monitoring his kidneys and his stomach, where they figure the infection is. They're fighting it off with antibiotics, but say it will ultimately get better when his white cells go up. They're starting to go up now.

One doctor said it was expected that Mike would be feeling like he is. He said once the white cells start to increase slowly, as Mike's are, the body can react by essentially getting worse before it gets better. He will probably feel like this for a few more days, then all of a sudden start to feel better. Again, the whole waiting game thing.

Mike was ordered to drink three Ensure "milkshakes" over the course of the day to get some calories and nutrition in him and to try to start getting his strength up. He didn't want to, but he did it. I wanted to jump for joy every time he finished one.

I had been going back and forth all week on whether to bring Julia to the hospital. She can't possibly understand what is going on and I was worried about her seeing Mike like he is. But yesterday, I really felt like he needed to see her in the flesh to remember why he's got to fight so hard. And the doctor agreed.

It went really well. Julia was not at all phased by the surroundings. She was just happy to see her dada. She wanted to get in bed with him so bad. But we sat her in a chair next to him and she drank her juice while he had an Ensure. She also tried to feed him Goldfish. Mike was beaming when he saw her and he made every effort to talk while she was there.

My mom took her home and I stayed and hung out with Mike. He was awake and alert the whole time while we watched a movie, and he even read the newspaper. This sounds like nothing but it was a big deal to me. He hasn't had the energy or desire to do any reading or watching TV this week.

So I'm really praying this means he's starting to turn the corner.

(Also today, we eagerly awaited text messages from Philip updating us about Kris, who was in labor. FINALLY Baby Felix arrived. 7 pounds 5 ounces, to be exact. He is so stinkin' cute already. We are over the moon.)