Wednesday, June 14, 2023

Hospital Update #3, June 14, 2023

 They got her into an ED room around 12:30am last night. Alyssa stayed with her until almost 2 before heading home to get some sleep. Amanda was finally able to get some sleep herself once she was in the bed.

The ER doctor we had been sent here to see finally talked to her sometime before 7am.  He said she would probably be admitted to the hospital around noon, and that he was concerned her abdominal pains might be coming from an obstruction of the liver ducts. He also confirmed she will be here for a few days.

I had a few things to take care of this morning, so i didn't get to the hospital until 1:30. When i came in, she was sitting up, awake and cognizant, and we were able to hold a conversation for a while until a nurse came for her. She told me her hemoglobin is very low today, she thought they had said it was a 5. Normal is 8, they give blood transfusions if it slips below 7, so she would be getting one. It's funny, when i said "infusion" yesterday, my brother misinterpreted it as "transfusion" and asked about her getting a blood transfusion, only for me to be like, no, she doesn't need that. And now here we are. She also told me they would be taking her for an MRI to check for obstructions of the liver and gallbladder.

Calcium level is improving. As i said above, it was 14 at the clinic yesterday. They gave her those injections to bring it down, and by the time the ER drew labs later last night, it was down to 12.8. This morning it's 12.1. No one has said if this decrease is in line with expectations but it's definitely a positive trend. Shortly after i arrived, the nurse was asking about her pain levels, and she reported it was at about a 2. That's a significant improvement from yesterday.

They started the blood transfusion at 2:15. Despite being under 8 blankets, she was still complaining of being cold, but she soon fell asleep and was able to rest for a little while. About 3:00, she suddenly woke up and said her pain had crept up to like a 4-5. She said she hadn't been given any pain medications since 5am, 10 hours ago. For reference, at home, the last few weeks, she's been having at least tylenol about every 6 hours. On really bad days, hydrocodone at the same rate. Most days she only takes the hydro once, but this is the hospital. This is not "most days." She pushed the button to contact a nurse, and they were able to bring her oxycodone right away. They said they could get her hydrocodone, but they would need to put in an order to the pharmacy and it would take a while; she accepted the oxy instead, even though she told them oxy doesn't work as well for her and often upsets her stomach. She just needed something right away.

She finally got admitted to the hospital and moved into a private room at 3:30, after 26 hours in the ER. It took the nurses well over an hour to get through logging her into the system and getting everything set up around her in the room, but they brought her snacks and got her dinner ordered. This is significant, because she'd been complaining of hunger for a few hours, which is great actually, i'm glad she's hungry! It's so hard to get her to eat at all lately. But unfortunately, they didn't want to feed her, because of the impending MRI. Once she was in the room, though, the nurses informed us that the MRI has been pushed back to about midnight, so eating now is fine.

We're finally settled into the room, and the nurses have left us alone. She's sleeping again, though, so i'm not going to bother her for a while. She ate a fruit cup and half a sandwich, which is a decent amount lately. That's just from the snacks, her dinner is still coming.

First bag of blood is in, working on the second.

 

6:43 pm
Ate her dinner. Vomited it all.

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