05 Jul Inpatient again
Keegan was admitted to the hospital again last night. After the reaccess of his port at midnight on Wednesday, it continued to bleed and have discharge of some kind into the dressing. He woke up Sunday morning scratching all around the dressing and at the needle site. He was otherwise very lethargic all day, when the several days prior he had actually shown improved energy. When we pulled the dressing and needle out Sunday afternoon, the skin around the port was extremely swollen and a disgusting shade of bright yellow! I will spare you the pictures, but it was quite obvious TPN had at least been sitting on his skin, more than likely infiltrated into his chest too.
So, GI asked us to bring him to the ER downtown. From there, they got an IV in his arm (somewhat better this time around) and admitted him. It is a holiday, however, so no one is really want to do anything at all about it today. We rested it today on surgery’s orders. They want to repeat the dye study tomorrow to see how much fluid is truly under his skin. Then, they will come back to us with an idea of how long it needs to rest to truly stop this infiltrate cycle. If it’s longer than another day, it is likely we will have to discuss placing another PICC line temporarily for his TPN. He is also now carrying 2.5 kilos (around 5 pounds) of edema or fluid retention from the steroids. Hopefully that will start to resolve as we beginning weaning the steroid dose down on Thursday.
Beyond that, we don’t have an idea of where this inpatient stay will take us. One more holiday inpatient checked off the list. The only holidays/special days Keegan has thus far NOT spent in the hospital are (in chronological order): our wedding anniversary (this coming Wednesday, so that will probably happen this stay), Gray’s birthday, Keegan’s birthday, and Christmas morning (although he was admitted late on Christmas night in 2008). Oh well, at least we will have a good view of the fireworks downtown from our room! More tomorrow on the plan. Thank you so much for your prayers for Keegan and us. Our nerves and patience with all this has worn quite thin lately. We appreciate every prayer for his healing and our endurance on this journey.
