Monday, Monday.

Can't trust that day.


Trying to catch up after completing the late shift at work.  J looks less like a porcupine each day.  His other drain was pulled.  We gave more pain medicine than before the first drain was pulled, but it still hurt coming out.  He is now drain free.  Not long before the drain was pulled he had his first real fever in several days.  They drew blood cultures again to make sure we aren't growing something that is not being treated by the big gun antibiotics.  If nothing new rears its ugly head, we just continue on with the course that we have set.

He walked all the way to the nurses station.  His room is towards the back of the floor he is on, so it was a bit of a walk.  His prize was picking out a movie to watch.  He chose "Night at the Museum".

He had a bit of diarrhea today.  No fun.  As if being totally deconditioned isn't enough, now he has to really rush to the toilet.  It's a really interesting bonding moment to take him into the bathroom and keep him company and give him a bit of physical support while he does his business, but he preferred me with him rather than me leaving the room and waiting for him.

He had a warm red rash on his arm.  Yesterday an IV line came to the end of it's life and the vein clotted off.  Sometimes that can become inflamed, and even possibly infected.  The IV insertion site was right at the edge of this warm rash.  Infection of the skin feels warm and looks red, and he had recently had a fever.  But he also had a little warm pack on his skin at that same place.  So the big question is, did the heat pack cause a bit of a burn that made it feel warm and red, even 30 minutes after it was removed (bit of a stretch in my mind) or was this a developing cellulitis (infection of the skin) while being treated with the big gun antibiotics?  (OK, both explanations are a bit of a stretch.)  I pulled out a little practical clinical experience from years ago and drew with marker on his skin at the edge of the rash, and waited.  When I checked later it was rapidly going away, so I guess it's not an infection, and it's probably not the reason for the fevers.

His diet remains clear liquid and he's not taking very much.  I think I'll write about advancing diets tomorrow.  Now I need to follow J's example and get some sleep.