Bill, Wednesday June 10

In ICU, Bill has a nurse who is just assigned to his care. That worried Christine, his daughter. And while we told her flat out that it is serious, the nurse helps to monitor a whole lot of activity.

What activity? Golly, what activity is not happening?

Every hour, she (or he, there have been a couple of male nurses) turns off the sedation and they do a neurological evaluation: pupil reactions, does he respond to "squeeze my hand," does he react to sensation at his feet. IV bags empty and are replaced, and everything has to be entered in the record. The lift team comes every few hours to reposition him. The nurse clears the breathing tube and suctions the lungs, charts the brain drain and catheter outputs.

Every morning the horde, no excuse me, the team of neuro (this is a teaching hospital, so there are a lot of people involved) consults outside the room on his status and develops plans for the day. There might be new scans, or should his feeding tube diet be changed, or moving blood pressure meds from IV to oral.

Mid-day Wednesday, the drain stopped draining. A flush was done and they would wait for a bit to see if it cleared, which it did but much later.

Late Wednsday, two residents (I think, could have been a Neuro Fellow in there I guess) came in and announced he had a low-grade fever (101.6 if my conversion from Celsius was correct).. He was going to have a chest x-ray, cultures, blood samples so they could try to identify the source. Monday evening when all this started, he had vomited more than once, and some residual got in his lungs, so that was a worry. The x-ray showed some cloudiness and they started antibiotics. His temperature is back in an acceptable range.

But I have to comment here. The nurses have been super, but a few of the doctors/residents/fellows have not. The two guys I just mentioned, bringing the news about temperature? I asked about the drain problem, and got a dismissive response (almost "Can't help you there."). When they left I told Ayn I hadn't had the urge to flip someone off in a very, very long time.