Wednesday, March 24, 2010

More bumps in the road

Hate to say it after all the positive trends lately, but the last 2 days have been less than ideal. The important stuff ( good heart and kidney) continues to be excellent, but one thing after another is keeping Robert J stuck in the hospital way longer than anyone wanted or expected. He continues to feel better every day, but has spent most of yesterday and again today "NPO" - without food or liquid, in anticipation of a couple of procedures. Yesterday it was for an ultrasound and fluid extraction dealing with his newest leaking wound, which didn't take place until late in the afternoon. Today the team started him off the same way in hopes that Dr. H would be available to operate on that wound and get it closed up so he can leave the hospital without risk of additional infection. Unfortunately the good doctor was unavailable all day, after performing yet another transplant last night. At 4 today RJ finally got permission to eat his first meal of the day, a stale lunch. He just now called to tell me that he will be NPO again after midnight tonight. Maybe they will try and get him into the OR again tomorrow. He is also scheduled back into the Interventional Radiology procedure room to get a PIC line installed so he can continue to get IV antibiotics outside of the hospital. The in-room procedure for that today was not successful, due to blockages in his chest area ( probably the darned leads from his former pacemaker that weren't able to be removed with the pacemaker unit a couple of weeks ago).

To add insult to injury, the laptop in his room is not getting along with UCSF's wifi connections, so after 45 minutes of composing another exciting post last night, he found that nothing got saved and his story disappeared. Today was even worse, so I got no work done while visiting him (which I count on doing at least part of the 6 to 8 hours I'm with him each day), and he was not able to play on Facebook or work on the blog. Just call us Mr. and Mrs. Cranky-Pants.....nothing terrible is happening, but these little obstacles seem to be going on and on and on. Cross your fingers that he will have internet access soon, as well as better news about getting out. It won't happen Thursday now, and the closer we get to the weekend, the slimmer the chances for getting released. Enough grumpies from me - happier days must be on the way!
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RJ/Bob/Irv is a 61-year-old beloved husband, father, uncle, brother, motor racing fanatic, and Livermore resident who received a heart and kidney transplant in February of 2010. Bob's recent years have been defined by his health, which forced him into early retirement. Unfortunately, many of his days were spent in a dialysis center or at various medical appointments, primarily due to his living with diabetes for over 40 years. Numerous were panic visits to various Emergency Rooms all over California for treatment of chest pain. But now no more dialysis and no more late-night dashes to UCSF! The main focus of Bob's family, friends, and doctors has been a prompt transplant, so that he can get back to traveling with his Sweetie, driving fast cars, enjoying great music and laughing with his friends. This blog will function as a way to communicate with all interested parties and to keep everyone informed. And hopefully it can serve a great purpose also, in making people more aware of the importance of organ donation and how each life saved has a positive effect on dozens of related friends and relatives.