Welcome And Why Guidance Matters

Welcome to the Only Child Diaries Podcast. I'm your host, Tracy Wallace. Have you ever felt like you didn't receive the how-to brochure on life? That you didn't get enough guidance about major life issues? So did I. You don't have to be an only child to feel this way. In my podcast, we'll explore some of the best ways to better navigate adulthood while doing so with humor and light. Welcome everyone to the Only Child Diaries Podcast.

Hospital Update And What Happened

Today I'm going to give you a short update on, I think it'll be short, on my husband's hospitalization. Ooh, exciting, right? We uh in our last episode, I left you uh with the fact that he was in the ICU for the second time. And uh that was because his uh blood sugar had catapulted him into diabetic ketoacidosis or DKA. For those of us that want to use shorter terms, DKA, and he had to be on an insulin drip. His breathing was good, but he had to be on an insulin drip, and that was the only reason that he was in the ICU. He was in there about 24 hours, and then they transferred him back to a red a regular room. I I've kind of lost track. I think this is bed number six or room number six uh that we've been in the hospital. We've transferred a lot, a lot of moving parts. And so we got into the regular room uh trying to resolve the pneumonia and uh Tuesday, and that was, you know, he's feeling better.

Breathlessness Returns And Testing Marathon

And then Wednesday, bam, didn't feel good again. Uh more trouble breathing. Uh very hard to watch. Wednesday was a really hard day for both of us. I mean, obviously it's harder for him, but he was having a lot of discomfort breathing. They did an ultrasound. They did, you know, I think they've done a chest x-ray like every day. I'm not sure. I've kind of lost track. I mean, I look at the portal, the patient portal every day, and I think there's so many tests that even the patient portal can't keep up because they do log almost every glucose reading that they take. Uh and then, you know, they they check the blood. Um, at one point they were checking his blood every four hours, which also is excruciating because his arms were so sore from all the IVs and all the poking and all the tests. Plus, he was a little swollen from the extra fluid in his body. And so to put that, you know, that band on uh that they put on your arm when they go to take blood, that was excruciating. To be poked yet again was excruciating, very hard to watch. Um and but they had to keep checking his levels. So uh the fact that he could still crack a joke is amazing, still had a sense of humor sometimes, not all the time, not certainly not all the time, but but sometimes. And so, but Wednesday was a tough day because of not being able to breathe and very labored breathing. They were doing the breathing treatments, and that did help.

Advocating, Sleep, And Waiting To Drain Fluid

Absolutely no appetite. Um so with the ultrasound, they said that they would do another thoracentesis, which is where they you know put a needle in your back and they drain fluid out fluid out of your lungs, and he had uh one in each lung when he was in the ICU. But then they told us that they had to wait because they had put him back on the blood thinners. So my you know, my heart dropped because I thought, how are we both gonna get through this? Um and I just went and I advocated for him. I talked to the nurses, I was the go-between. I got him to a place uh where he was able to rest and sleep. Sleep is good. If you can sleep, that's good because then you're out of misery. And so I sat there and people would come in and I'd be like, shh, be quiet, be sleeping. And so he was able to get about two and a half hours of sleep in the afternoon. He felt a little bit better, um, still didn't want to eat. Um, but I just said Thursday's gonna be a better day. It was a better day. He was able to sleep again in the afternoon. The breathing treatments helped. Um, waiting for the thoracentesis. So I was hopeful when I went, this is Saturday when I'm recording this. I was hopeful yesterday when I went that he was gonna feel better because Thursday was a good day, but he didn't feel better yesterday. He was grumpy, just out of sorts. I don't blame him. He

Transfusion And The Chair Breakthrough

did get a blood transfusion because his hemoglobin was low, and they were worried about that, so um they said that a blood transfusion would help him feel better. It didn't, uh because he still had trouble breathing, and they said his breathing was going in the right direction because he could keep his oxygenation levels even with reduced oxygen from the machine, but I didn't see it. Um he again had no appetite. So uh I was sitting there with him, and then all of a sudden he said, I want to get up. And I was like, Really? Okay, so he did. He got up out of bed, he took a couple steps, and he sat in the big chair, the big reclining chair that they have in hospitals. Um and he said, Wow, I'm able to breathe in this position. So he was much more comfortable. He did promptly fall asleep, and he sat up for about three hours and he ate there in the chair. Um, didn't eat a lot, but he did eat, and he felt better. And then he was, of course, he was exhausted, so we got back into bed, and that's when I left him yesterday. Now, they they also gave us a caveat with the um thoracentesis today, was that they were gonna have to check the plavex level, the blood thinner level in his blood first to make sure that he had, I guess, the coagulation um level right for that.

Procedure Results And Hope For Home

But because you don't want to be sticking a needle in your lung and have the thin blood, I guess that's what I'm those are the technical terms. Anyway, they did do the one lung this morning. I don't know exactly how he's doing today, but they'll do the other lung tomorrow, and that should help. And the other good news is that his kidney function, at least lab-wise, has rebounded somewhat, not back to where he was before the pneumonia, but it has come back. And what I noticed yesterday was that his ankles, um, his lower legs, his ankles, his feet were swollen. Yesterday, let me just say, swollen to the point where they had, you know, those hospital socks, and they cut the tops down about, I don't know, two or three inches so that they weren't binding him. Yesterday the socks were loose and the swelling had really gone down. So a lot of the fluid I think has um left his body, which is great news. He should that's working in the right direction. I think he's exhausted from being in the hospital. Yes, exhausted just from you know not eating right and not feeling like eating and being sick, but hopefully these things are gonna work out. I I would I would hope, I know that if he gets the second lung drained, we're gonna have to see if you know, if everything resolves, make sure that they don't fill up with fluid again. But um I mean now I I just hope that nothing else bad happens, nothing else falls out from underneath us, and maybe next weekend he could come home. Um

Pushed Toward Facilities And Holding The Line

I I know that hospitals are a business, and so the doctor said they wanted me to talk to you about something, and I was like, oh God, what is it now? Um and she said the hospital wanted to know if you want to move him to a long-term care hospital. And she didn't say skilled nursing, she said long-term acute care hospital. And I was like, no, I know. And she said, Okay, we won't talk about it again. I was like, okay, well, that was easy. Um, so then that that day, that was when I was at home, and then I went to the hospital, and one of the first people that came in was the caseworker, and she said, Here's a list, she's handed me this paper, here's a list of the skilled nursing facilities that he's been approved for. And I just looked at her and she said, Well, didn't they talk to you about this? I said, No, they didn't talk to me about this, and I said, We're not interested in this. Um, as I roll my eyes again, um, no, we're not, no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, we're lucky in that we have the capacity financially to take care of him at home, whatever he needs. I know just from taking care of my parents that that's the better thing to do. I mean, if if he's able to sustain, uh obviously there's certain things like having pneumonia. I I can't we can't give him IVs at home, and there's certain things we can't do at home. But if he's strong enough, he is strong because the PT lady came while he was in the chair yesterday, and she had him do some exercises, and he was able to do them. So um I'm still hopeful.

Day 40 Mindset And Next Steps

I know he's been really, really sick, and he's been through a lot. And this is, I believe, this the day that I'm recording this is day 40. Are we both tired? Am I tired? Yes. I'm mentally I'm mentally exhausted. I do sleep every day, I do eat every day, but I am mentally exhausted from this. Who wouldn't be? Day 40. Oh, good grief. Um, I mean, I s I was thinking in the beginning, it's it's a marathon, not a sprint. This is like two marathons or three marathons, but anyway, I digress. Um I'm just focused on I know that he's he's trying so hard, and it's just patience and waiting and hoping, and there's always hope. Um he's been through a lot and he's been really sick, and it's gonna take time. And so um, you know, the dog and the cat, and we miss him at home, and I know he wants to be home. So that's all I've got for today.

Closing And How To Support

Um stay well, and next week we're gonna tackle another topic together. I hope you'll join me. If you like this episode, please follow the Only Child Diaries podcast on Apple Podcasts or other platforms you might listen on. And consider rating Only Child Diaries and writing a review. It helps others to find us. Please share it with a friend you think might like it as well. Visit my Instagram page, Only Child Diaries, or Facebook, Only Child Diaries Podcast. Thanks for listening. I'm Tracy Wallace, and these are the Only Child Diaries.