Facebook updates for January 16th & 17

This time together with Gina and John have had their own ups and downs, with shocks and fears as well as joys and accomplishments.

Sunday the 16th
7:30am Pain throughout the night that required 'big hurt' medicine either on time or early each time, fever and this morning's chest x-ray looks worse than yesterday. He is still on hi-flow but now at 60% oxygen instead of 40. Is it a virus, sepsis, pneumonia, and what is going on in the belly? Thank God it's Sunday and Mark is on his way as soon as church is over.

9:30am We will be headed to CatScan later this morning, they want a good look at his lungs, abdomen and pelvis to find out what's wrong. Thank God it's not like the last trip to CT but still the memories are ouch and Mark won't be here yet, but if I can get these idiotic tears to stop coming out of my eyes they will probably let me go in with him and not wait in the hallway alone.

1:30pm CatScan is done, we await the results but I got to be with him the whole time and he did great on both the trip to and from and in the CT itself. Thanks for your prayers, some of this is oh so much harder than I would have ever imagined and yet I am so blessed that on these hard hard days that the staff are kind and friendly, you all are amazingly supportive and Mark is now on his way.

7:30pm Mark is safely here, the world weighs a bit less and the night seems less dark! John's little bladder put out a liter of pee pee and go figure the kid doesn't hurt as much and he can breath easier. He will probably end up with a chest tube in the right side tomorrow and hopefully his need for hi-flow will come to an end soon.

8pm I wrote: There is nothing better in the whole world than to bring my dear wife good brisket and get her some orange juice cake, except maybe to see and hold the hand of my indomitable son and stay by his side.

Monday the 17th
12:30pm Hi-flow oxygen machine is being evicted as John no longer needs it and he's down to just 1 1/2 liters of oxygen from the wall. He doesn't need a second chest tube so far and also another day without dialysis and feeds are going to be started again today. John is cuddled up on Mark's lap still dealing with some pain but oh so much better!

6:30pm Room air :)

7pm Well ok, let me revise that, room air while he is laying in bed, when he is sitting in the wheelchair working so hard that he is exhausting himself, we voted better to need a little oxygen and have another muscle workout than to not need it and lay in bed.

9:30pm And now there's blood. Nose bleed a bit earlier from all the suctioning and such most likely and this is probably just stemming from that but we wait for labs. But prior to this John felt good enough to open a few gifts and while he doesn't yet have the energy for them let me just say that nerf guns rock!

10pm Labs are in, hemoglobin is 12.5 and so we are going to watch for a while longer but soon I think Dr Mercer's line 'ah, it's just blood, nothing to get worked up over' will be invoked and we will be back to business as usual!

This morning has shown some ups and downs ahead as they are trying to manage John's fluid status and kidney numbers. He keeps shifting fluid to the area around his lungs even as the rest of him is acting like he's dry. His kidney numbers are therefore out of whack and the question becomes does he need dialysis, which means a small surgery to place a new dialysis catheter, or does he need more fluid in to keep fluid moving through the kidneys, which could make his breathing issues worse.