Grandpa is still in the hospital, but!

HisBelovedOne

As of yesterday, his blood work shows that for the last 4 to 5 days he is bacteria free. The antibiotics did their job. He is still very sick. The doctors feel that given enough time (weeks not days) and barring any more complications he can have a full recovery. They just have to support his kidneys and lungs for a while longer with dialysis and ventilator.

He is doing well with dialysis so far. Not at the volume they would like, but taking baby steps. BP is holding with much less medication. He spent two weeks on the ventilator, and you can't go longer than that with a tube down your throat, so they're scheduling a tracheotomy for Tuesday.

raangoli

Glad to hear that he's doing better! Baby steps are always great news when battling so many different things from so many different angles! Sending more thoughts and hugs your way for both your grandfather and all the stuff going on with R.

HisBelovedOne

My mom called a couple hours ago. Grandpa has taken a bad turn again. My mom and her siblings are headed back up to Georgia for the third time in two weeks; today Grandpa’s heart stopped for two minutes on dialysis. His body can’t handle the dialysis, but his kidneys have stopped working because of the sepsis. They’re meeting first thing in the morning with the kidney specialist and the cardiologist to see what else can be done.

They can't do a tracheotomy yet - something about the risk of a secondary infection being too high. If he gets another infection on top of the sepsis, it will kill him. So he's still on the ventilator, still under heavy sedation, still has a feeding tube.