Medical Update from Mom/Grandma

Sooooo - the endoscopy showed almost no opening at the bottom of the esophagus so no wonder nothing was getting through. He dilated the heck out of it on Tuesday, but by Wednesday afternoon Grandma had developed a terrible pain in her side near the gastric tube. Off to the emergency room we went at 7 p.m. to meet the doctor there. All the tests they did showed nothing except a mildly elevated white count but the different kinds of white cells were not quite of the distribution one would expect if they were gearing up to fight an infection. CAT scan was ordered for the a.m. and they kept her overnight, giving her pain meds to feel better.

Highway 34 was shut down by water over the roadway just outside of town so it was bumper-to-bumper traffic with everyone going thru Albany on Hwy 20. Anyway, I waited at the hospital the next night until about 8 p.m. but the doctor had emergencies and didn't get there until midnight. At that time, he didn't know the CAT scan results anyway because the radiologist hadn't done the report yet.

Pain meds resulted in her bladder deciding not to work so they had to put in a catheter. They stopped the pain meds. Next a.m. the CAT scan report says the gastric tube had migrated into the duodenum. The stomach and intestines therefore thought it was food and was trying to eat it. He pulled it back up where it belonged.

Meanwhile, the bladder is working overtime and it looks like the catheterization has resulted in a bladder infection. The nurse assured me that an UA done the day before was perfectly clear. I was not convinced that things hadn't changed since then.

Last night doctor got there to make rounds at 9 p.m. and had talked with the surgeon. They decided to take the tube out altogether. He also thought the UA should be repeated and it did show an infection.

So, since the tube has been removed, Grandma has been eating like a logger, no pain, no throwing up and generally feels much better. She got quite a bit of exercise going back and forth from her bed to the bathroom so is ambulating pretty well.

We brought her home today about noon and she is now snoozing in the recliner. They had her bed at 30 degrees in the hospital so Dad put 2 bricks under the bed here. From the looks of it, she'll slide right out so I think we'll have to take out one brick and give her extra pillows.

The hole where the gastric tube came out will take some time to close, and meanwhile may ooze out some stomach contents. So far we haven't seen anything nearly so exciting. Maybe she'll let me change the dressing tonight and we can look for fruit salad (part of lunch).

So, doctor thinks we are in for clear sailing. Grandma has been sneezing all day though and probably has caught the cold I had last week. I'm really glad to agreed to come here for a few days at least.