Sick, Grandpa, et.al.

I called in sick Friday. I was feeling badly enough that I did not want to sit at my desk at work, but not badly enough that I thought I should go to a doctor. I ended up sleeping away the entire morning. I did not go back to bed. I simply laid back in my recliner. Mama kissed me about 8:30 as she left to go do some errands in Decatur. I was barely aware. Turns out I should have paid more attention because I would not see her again until almost midnight. I was almost awake at 10:30 when she called to tell me that she had been asked by Grandpa to take him to the Emergency Room. She called back at 11:00 to tell me she was taking him to a heart hospital in Denton instead. If Grandpa was feeling badly enough to ask for a ride to the hospital, he had to be in pretty rough shape. I rested most of the day. Slept through a lot of it, only really getting out of my stupor in the early afternoon. Saturday, I felt better. Sunday, I felt rotten. Today, I am passable. I am striving to reach the point that I will be able to teach the two classes scheduled this week. Wednesday and Thursday. I have a couple days to get better. Whether or not that happens remains to be seen.

Back to Grandpa. Mama and Grandma took Grandpa to the Emergency Room at one of the heart hospitals in Denton. They got there some time in the late morning. After a lot of discussions and delays and a battery of tests during which the technicians had a very difficult time drawing blood, they finally reached the conclusion that Grandpa would be admitted for observation and possible surgery. The tests seemed to point to a blockage – an infarction – in his spleen. The heart hospital was not equipped with the surgeons to handle the proposed surgery, so a sister hospital was contacted. Arrangements were made to transfer Grandpa to their care – more tests, more discussions, more analysis.

Mama and Grandma left Grandpa in the hospital without knowing his room assignment at the next hospital. The staff had the presence of mind to give Mama all the contact information she needed to track Grandpa down.  It was almost midnight when they got to the farm. Grandma spent the night with us to facilitate returning to the hospital the following day – Saturday. Mama called early to get Grandpa’s room number. She called Grandpa for an update. Found out that nothing had been decided. Headed to the hospital to see when was happening and spent the entire day waiting on doctors, waiting on lab results, waiting on a prognosis, waiting on someone to make a decision. By late Saturday afternoon, the decision had been made to hold off on surgery. Since Grandpa had been on blood thinners for several years now, the fact that his spleen was occluded by a clot gave the doctors sufficient pause to hold off on a surgery that would result in more clots being produced. So, he was given a meal for the first time in 30 hours. However, on Sunday morning, he was put back on liquids only.

The doctors wanted to do a colonoscopy to make sure the blood he regularly sees in his stools is not coming from a ruptured polyp in the colon. Those results will be forthcoming. For follow-up when he is finally released, Grandpa has seen a hematologist who is doing some cultures that require seven to ten days to finalize. He wants to see Grandpa within two weeks to discuss the results with him. That is where the process to treatment will begin. Grandpa’s blood count was very low. He has been on blood thinners yet still suffers from blood clots. Without those two issues being successfully addresses there is too much danger in operating to relieve the blockage in the spleen. So, we wait.

Grandma and Mama will be at the hospital today waiting on Grandpa to be discharged following the battery of tests required to pinpoint a diagnosis and thereby a final treatment plan. There is some speculation as to whether he will be released today or tomorrow, that decision will be made by late today. Mama has been running a lot over the past three day and is ready to settle back down. As are Grandma and Grandpa. But she has held up remarkably well in spite of uncomfortable chairs in the hospital rooms she has been forced to occupy for multiple hours every day. Grandma is not doing so well since she is more used to lounging or laying to reliever her constant pain.

All of them will be relieved when Grandpa is released and there is a plan forward for his recovery.