The Rest of the Hospital Story

Quick update before we dive into all the details: We are home. Kurt was released on Tuesday, February 25th. He was in the hospital for 3 weeks and 1 day. We are all trying to adjust to being back home and getting caught up on everything. The mail pile alone was overwhelming but we are getting there. Kurt tires easily and is getting frustrated with his limitations. He rests when he needs to and tries to get out of the house and do something everyday. The doctor said that after something like this it is an easy 3 weeks to recover so we know it will just take time. The kids are all doing good. Each one is dealing with it in their own way so they keep me on my toes. Neither Kurt or Trevor are sleeping very good so between the 2 of them, I am usually up a few times during the night. Kurt and I are just exhausted. I don't know another way to describe us. We are just so tired and trying to keep up with everything ~ the business, the kids, the homework, the house, life. It all seems to work out so we just keep taking it one day at a time.

They were not able to do any procedures or operations to repair or fix the problem. He still has a partially block, dissected celiac artery with an aneurysm. Kind of scary if you ask me. All he did was stand up when this originally happened so every time he sneezes, coughs, stands up, etc., I am paranoid something will happen again. I feel very unsettled as we adjust to this new normal. Chances are very slim that the aneurysm would rupture but the chance of this whole thing happening is so slim that that fact doesn't comfort me at all. He obviously falls into the very rare category. He has done pretty good. He hasn't taken pain meds since the Tuesday he came home except the night he woke me up at 2 am with pain. Scared us both. His pain got to a 5 but came back down. We sat up for 2 hours waiting to see what would happen. It is just the unknown that is so scary. Is it going to tear more? Is he going to develop a new tear? Could something happen to that aneurysm? The unknowns are hard. Very, very hard. I feel like he is a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. Hopefully he never will but just the possibility keeps me nervous. He is still really tired and weak. He can't lift anything over 5 pounds so he can't do much at all. He says he just doesn't like the way his body feels - whether that is from 3 weeks in a hospital, recovering from his injury and procedures, the blood thinners or something else going on in there, we just don't know. Like I said, it's the unknown that is so scary and hard to deal with.

So, back to the story. We left off on Thursday, the 6th, when his blood pressure gave us a little scare that night but he was fine. 

Friday, February 7th

I arrived at the hospital, Mercy General, and we waited for them to come get him for another ct scan. If it was the same or better, they were going to release him. If it was worse, we would have to create a new plan. They did the ct scan and then his 2 doctors and the PA came and saw him before the results were back so they didn't have much to tell us. We were bummed that we didn't know the results. We asked our nurse a little later if he could tell us and he said that he couldn't, only the doctors can give you the results. Since all the doctors had already been there we didn't know how long it would be until one came back to give us the results.

Let me just add in here the "joy" of hospital roommates. And by "joy", I mean "torture." The rooms were all shared at Mercy General and from Wednesday to Thursday, we didn't have a roommate. Then Thursday we got a roommate. Poor guy. I felt really bad for him. He was really dirty and unkept and had some condition that made it hard for him to control his body. He groaned, moaned, thrashed around in his bed and made a lot of noise. He dropped a lot of things and so I was frequently going over to his side to help him. Then there were times when he would start yelling "NURSE! NURSE!" really loud. I would run and get his nurse for him. I was really concerned about Kurt being there over night with him and if he would even be able to sleep. Let alone, I didn't want Kurt getting up all night to take care of him. About 6 pm that guy's nurse came in to check on him and then came over to us and asked how we were doing. He just happened to mention that we could ask to move rooms if we wanted too. I had no idea that was an option. I went straight to the nurses station and requested a room change. I tried to wait until they had Kurt moved before I left but it was taking forever and I had to get home to the kids so I left before he got his new room. I met his new roommate the next morning on Friday. The guy watched M-TV ALL. DAY. LONG! It was horrible. In case you were wondering, M-TV is full of garbage. We couldn't stand it. Plus, every time the roommate talked to someone on the phone, he cussed like a sailor. We couldn't wait to get out of there!

So anyways, the nurse finally came in later on Friday and said that while he couldn't give us the results, he could tell us that discharge orders were written. Woo Hoo! We knew we were getting out of there! So we waited and finally the doctor came in to discharge us. When you are admitted to the hospital, you are assigned a primary doctor plus whatever specialists you need. We had 3 primary doctors during our whole stay and I have to say that we didn't like a single one of them. They seem completely pointless and egotistical. They were beyond frustrating. So the one we had a Mercy General was an old guy and he seemed to be at the point of needing to retire. He messed up on one of Kurt's medicines (wrote him an iv prescription for him to take home - uh, no iv's at home!). He also wrote Kurt's prescription for pain meds at home and then we were out of there! Kurt was free!

I got him home at about 4, dropped him off and then headed to the store to get his prescriptions. I got back home and gave him his first dose of pain pills. He was doing good, tired but was ok. We had a few friends come by and say hi to him. That night was pretty rough though. Turns out that the primary doctor wrote the prescription saying that Kurt could take the pills 4 times a day, which meant every 6 hours, but unfortunately the medicine wore off at 3.5 - 4 hours and he was miserable until he could take the meds again. We were watching his blood pressure making sure it didn't go too high. We were suppose to keep it under the 130 mark but it kept fluctuating with his pain. 

Saturday, February 8th

I gave him meds at the 8:30 am scheduled time but he didn't start feeling any relief until 10:30. It took 2 hours for the meds to kick in. It became apparent that we were definitely losing the battle against the pain. We couldn't get it under control. We debated back and forth whether to take him back to the hospital or not and finally decided to after his blood pressure went up again.

Turns out that Mercy General messed up. So Kurt is one of those people that pain meds don't work very good on. It takes a lot of pain meds to have an effect on him. For example, he was taking 2 Norco pills that were 7.5 - 325 each and they were not working on him. While he was at Mercy General for those 3 days they were using a drug called dilaudid which he was receiving through his iv. We were told that dilaudid is about 6 times (one nurse said 10 times) stronger than morphine. Mercy General just stopped the dilaudid and sent him home. They should have transitioned him onto the pills before they released him. So stopping the dilaudid cold turkey and sending him home with the prescription set him up for problems with pain management. Gee, thanks a lot! The other thing they did wrong was the fact that they had him on dilaudid for 3 days without giving him any stool softeners or laxatives. Narcotics are known to cause constipation and they took no action to prevent this; which caused serious problems later. Gee, thanks again Mercy General!

So Saturday morning, we headed to Mercy San Juan's ER (it is closer to our house than Mercy General). Want to do something fun? Walk into an ER and tell them that your husband has a dissected celiac artery and aneurysm and watch them react. This ER had a little sub-triage area that you had to go through before you sat down and as soon as I told them that, all 3 of them pulled up his file on the computer and dived into it. They were like "did you see this?" and point to something on the screen, "did you see that?" and point again. He immediately got marked for the next bed. We waited just a little bit before they called us back in. We had a great time sitting in the ER. Kurt's meds finally kicked in and he wasn't in pain and the poor guy next to us was a crack up. We silently giggled the whole time listening to him. It was hilarious. Good times in the ER. That's what our life has come to.

They decided to do another ct scan so off Kurt went once again for that test. When they came in with the results, they said the same thing the first ER said "This just never walks through the door." It was like they just didn't know what to do with us. People don't walk in with this condition. Either they die from it never realizing there is a problem or they don't know about it. They explained to us the seriousness of  the condition and we were like, "uh ya, we know. That's why we are here." They decided to admit him so that we could get his pain under control again. They wanted to put him on morphine which I had to explain that it doesn't work for him. He doesn't feel any effect from morphine but that is their go-to drug so they all want to start him out on it. I have to fight and say "No! It doesn't work." I really wish they could put something in his chart so they would know this and just skip this step. Every time we switched rooms, moved hospitals or got a different doctor, they all want to put him on morphine. So frustrating! Anyways, we were once again in the hospital. 

We called our nephew and his wife, who had offered to stay with the kids the week before, to see if that offer was still on the table. They agreed immediately and came to "move in" to our house with the kids. The week before I had different people watching the kids and I came home at night which was hard to balance everything and to remember who was watching them when. I wanted some consistency for the kids so that their world was a calm as possible. We are so grateful for Kaulana and Michelle coming to provide that consistency for them.

Kurt Saturday night

Sunday, February 9th
Sunday morning our new primary doctor came in. She was the worst. She didn't listen to us, she immediately took him off of dilaudid and put him on pain pills with morphine as a back up, which I fought her on big time, and she didn't seem to understand what his condition was and just wanted him off the dilaudid. She just kept saying "you know what I mean?" and I wanted to yell at her "Listen to us! Do you know what WE mean?" It was so upsetting. I was a mess the rest of the day. I was exhausted and just completely drained after fighting with that doctor. Our nurse was in there when that all happened and said she had never seen that side of her and tried to convince us that she was a really good doctor. Basically the doctor's point was that she wanted him off dilaudid because it was addictive and he couldn't go home on it so she wanted to switch him to the pain pills so that he would be ready to go home when they decided to send him home. That all made sense and was probably the correct path to take but the way she did it was horrible. It was very upsetting to us. The other problem we had was that Kurt hadn't had a bowel movement since Tuesday, thanks to all those pain meds that General filled him with so they started a serious attack on that problem and thankfully, later that day, he was able to go but it was a rough battle. Poor guy had to drink more goop and gunk than I would ever want to drink. The kids brightened our day with gifts for Kurt so we hung them on the wall.

You might have noticed the wall is an accordion style wall. This wing was a mixture of shared and private rooms but even the private ones weren't totally private. We were lucky enough to have this accordion wall between us and our neighbor. It wasn't sound proof by any means but at least it was better than the curtain that some rooms had between people. We had to share a bathroom with this neighbor. We were in the old section of the hospital and the room was . . . old, gross, nasty, old, stained, gross, did I mention nasty? Oh, and small. It was a tight fit in there but at least it was better than the room at General.

Kurt was able to manage his pain on the pills for the rest of the day which made us realize that maybe that doctor was correct in switching his meds. We still didn't like her but understood why she did it. We were hoping that since we had gotten the pain under control on the pills, that he would be able to go home soon.

Sunday was the first day we met Dr. Beal. At Mercy General, Dr. Hayes, the vascular surgeon, had been assigned Kurt's case because he was the one on call when we were admitted. Dr. Beal is his partner. Dr. Hayes was always very quick in and out and didn't leave a lot of time for thinking and question asking. When we were admitted to Mercy San Juan, Dr. Beal was the one on call and came to talk to us Sunday morning. She came in, sat down and discussed with us what was going on. She gave us time to think and ponder and come up with questions. We really liked her. She said we made the right choice to come in and get the pain under control again. She also said the best approach was to watch and see what happened with his condition. She said we might be able to go home on Monday.

Monday, February 10th
The pain pills continued to work over the night so we felt pretty confident we would go home. Dr. Beal came in that morning and our argument for going home was that he was on pain pills, no iv meds and they weren't doing anything for him at the hospital that we couldn't do at home so why would we need to stay any longer? She was hesitant to let us go so she only agreed to it after he ate lunch to see how he did. 20 minutes later the nurse came in with the discharge paperwork and Kurt was literally signing his name when we looked up and saw Dr. Beal, Dr. Hayes and their (amazing) PA Cathleen walk through the door. We were nervous. Anytime a whole vascular surgeon team walks through your door, you know something is up.

After Dr. Beal had left our room, she met with Dr. Hayes and Cathleen and they reviewed his scans again and just didn't feel comfortable letting him go home. They decided they wanted to try an angiogram and see if they could get a stint put in there. (An angiogram is where they go in through the artery in the leg and up into the aorta to access either the heart or other artery; in our case they would access the celiac). We were disappointed that he wasn't going home but knew that if they were not comfortable with it, there had to be a very good reason. So we prepared for a longer stay. That evening the kids came to see Kurt. Kayla was there but she refuses to have her picture taken these days.

Tuesday, February 11th
Kurt woke up at about 6 am and said his pain was getting worse. I immediately went and got our night-shift nurse, Sat. He gave Kurt his 2 Norco pills. By 6:30 Kurt told me to go get Sat again because the pain was increasing. I walked down the hall to the nurses station and told Sat that Kurt wanted him again. He came right away and by the time we walked back into the room, Kurt was sobbing. He was in so much pain. Sat and I were both a little bit shocked because he had been doing so good up to this point. Things went really fast at this point. Kurt was screaming and crying and in so much pain it was scary. Sat immediately started giving him the morphine, which was the medicine on his file for "break-through" pain. I explain to Sat that morphine doesn't work for Kurt. Kurt was coming off the bed in pain, he was bright red, sweating like crazy and his blood pressure went through the roof. The blood pressure machine was beeping like crazy because it was so high. Sat called out a rapid response and within seconds the room was cleared of all furniture, the crash cart was rolled in and a lot of people filled that small room. Sat called the doctor and was literally arguing with her trying to get dilaudid added back onto Kurt's chart so he could give it to him. Finally she agreed so Sat immediately gave him a dose, then another. So Kurt had Norco, morphine and dilaudid in him and he was still in agony. The blood pressure machine was still going nuts. I was at his head trying to wipe off his face with a cool, wet rag and trying to get him to breath. He kept holding his breath because it hurt so bad. It was the scariest thing I have ever been through. Honestly, I thought he was going to die. I thought there was no way his body was going to be able to deal with all this. Either his heart would give out from the stress of it all or his aneurysm was going to rupture because his blood pressure was so high. I thought at any minute his body would just stop working. The rapid response team all just stood there waiting for him to crash so they could try to save him. It was the scariest, most horrible experience of my life.

I started having thoughts: what am I going to tell our kids? They just saw him last night and he was fine. How am I going to raise 4 kids by myself? What am I going to do? Then the worst thought of all: Trevor won't even remember his dad. He loves his dad so much and they have such an amazing relationship and he won't even remember him because he is too little. I was so shaken up. I couldn't even believe what was happening.

His pain came in waves, like contractions so he had tiny, little breaks of mild relief. Finally, after what felt like forever, the pain started to subside. I think it was about 7:30 or 8 am by then. Sat was off at 7 am and I remember him being on overtime but he wouldn't leave Kurt's side. He was amazing. He took control of the situation, fought for what Kurt needed and helped him get through it. We loved Sat and were excited any night he was our nurse. We had him several nights and even on the nights that he wasn't scheduled to be our nurse, he would come down and check in on Kurt to see how he was doing. He was a great person!

This picture is actually taken several days later when Kurt was strong enough to be up walking around again.

Kurt was able to recover from that episode and they performed the angiogram through his leg later that morning. I called his sister, April, and her and her husband, Rick, came down to be with me while he had the procedure done. My dad also came to be at the hospital to be with me. One of my roommates from my college days happened to text me that morning right after everything had happened and I told her about it. She drove 45 minutes to come be with me too. She was so sweet!  Unfortunately, they were not able to access the celiac artery because of the angle. They came up his aorta and tried to turn into the celiac but it isn't the easiest turn and they were not able to do it. Kurt was exhausted and wiped out that afternoon but managed the pain with the pills again. They decided to go through his arm on Wednesday. The arm is a harder access point but the angle should be better for getting into the celiac. The arm also had higher chance of complications which is why they didn't do it first.

Wednesday, February 12th
Kurt woke me up at 2 am and said it was starting again. He could feel the pain coming. I ran and got his nurse, Clarissa, who had been warned about this. She came in immediately with the dilaudid meds and gave him a dose. This seemed to stop the pain from escalating, at least for a little bit, but then at about 2:30, it got out of control again. While the morning before had been waves of pain, this time it was just a steady, unrelenting pain. They always ask "on a scale of 0-10, what is your pain?" At one point he was yelling, "it's a 14! It's a 14!" Kurt realized that yelling and moaning helped release some of the pain so he yelled and moaned a lot. At 2:50 I called April and Rick and told them to get down there. They arrived at about 3:40 and it was still going on. He was in so much pain that I thought I was watching him die again. Horrible doesn't even begin to describe it. I don't know how to describe what it was like to watch him in so much pain and thinking that he wasn't going to make it. My legs were shaking so bad as I tried to stand up by his head and talk to him and calm him down. Clarissa also had to call out a rapid response so once again our room was cleared, the crash cart was rolled in and we had a ton of people in his room. A main head nurse/charge nurse came in with the crash call and she was really worried about him. She wanted to move him to ICU but couldn't without a doctors order. She called ICU on her own accord and told them to get a bed ready. Then she tried to get ahold of the doctor to get the order written. I supported her 100% because I wanted him to be watched like a hawk. They never ended up moving him - I don't think the primary doctor thought he really needed it (but she wasn't there seeing this happen!). When he seemed to be stabilizing, the crash team disappeared. When the pain started to subside this time, it only went down to an 8, which is still high on the pain scale. He was miserable and just begged for more meds. After a while, Kurt couldn't respond to the pain anymore and just seemed to lay there in a sleep mode. He was still in agony, just completely exhausted and couldn't do anything. That was almost scarier than the screaming and crying because I didn't know what was happening inside him. At least with the screaming and crying I knew he was fighting but this stillness made me scared that something else was going on but I also didn't want him screaming in agony so it was a very confusing situation. By the time Dr. Hayes (the doctor on call that night) came in, Kurt appeared calm but I tried to explain to him that he was still really hurting and that he was just too exhausted to do anything about it. So frustrating that they never saw how badly he was hurting because it seemed they didn't believe us as to how bad it was.

Anyways, here is Clarissa. She was another amazing nurse. We actually had her Saturday night when Kurt was first admitted and we had her several times as well. She was awesome in the fact that she didn't know about his condition so she took it upon herself to research it so that she would know the best way to care for him. We were also very excited for nights that she was our nurse because she was so amazing. When they were talking about moving him to ICU, Kurt said he wanted to take Clarissa with him because she did such a good job making sure she was doing everything she could for him.

Because of all his pain, they moved Kurt up on the schedule and got him in for the 2nd angiogram first thing in the morning. He was still in so much pain that he was begging them to just knock him out for the procedure. Unfortunately, they couldn't do it because that room wasn't set up to put people under. He was absolutely miserable. It was so sad and sickening for me to watch him in so much pain  and know he was headed into a procedure that he would be awake for and it was so scary not knowing what was going to happen and if he would be all right.

The procedure was long. April, Rick, my dad, Nikki (my roommate - she came back for a 2nd day), Lorraine and Christine sat with me during this procedure. I will be honest and say that I was a mess. A complete and total mess. I had hardly eaten Tuesday and I couldn't eat Wednesday either. My nerves were shot and my stomach was in knots. I had been through 2 horrific events where I thought I was going to lose my husband. I was pushed to my limits and couldn't handle anymore.

They finally said we could go see him and when I asked him if they were able to get the stint in he said he didn't think so. I was devastated. We all were. That was suppose to fix this. It was suppose to prevent anymore attacks of pain and it had failed. The tear had formed a blood clot in the artery and that was why they couldn't gain access to the artery. We thought he would now need major abdominal surgery. The surgery is very invasive as to get to the celiac artery, you have to move all the organs out of the way and they don't like to be messed with. Then once they get back there, they would have to clamp off the aorta (the main artery) and cut blood flow off to the lower half of his body including the organs in his abdomen. Sometimes the organs don't respond well to having their blood flow cut off so there is a risk of the organs having problems after the surgery. You need to have 2 vascular surgeons in the operating room for the surgery. The whole concept is just so scary. They took him back to his room and my friends went into planning mode. They were amazing! I couldn't even think straight so they just figured things out for me. They bought me food, stayed with me, figured out what was going on with my kids, etc. They just took care of everything. I will be forever grateful for their abilities to see what needed to be done and doing it. I was in no shape to be able to do anything other than meet Kurt's needs.

They gave him a pump for his pain meds so he could push the button whenever he felt he needed it. This worked really good and kept his pain away for the most part. He was exhausted and had been through so much that he tried to sleep a lot.

Thursday, February 13th
Thursday was a rough day. Kurt was having a hard time recovering from everything that happened the day before. He felt like he had been hit by a truck. He hurt everywhere. He felt sick and was miserable. It was not a fun day. Anytime he said that he hurt, my legs started shaking and my stomach knotted up as I thought we were preparing for another attack. Ok, so I was a mess this day too. I would eat 2 bites and then feel sick to my stomach so I had hardly eaten since Tuesday. Every time someone called I would end up crying like a baby on the phone. I was so scared and exhausted. April and Rick came to sit with Kurt so that I could run home, shower, see the kids, try to explain to them what had happened without completely freaking them out, pack more clothes and come back. The whole time I was home, I was anxious to get back to Kurt. I was so worried about not being with him if something happened. Kurt's dad and stepmom arrived Thursday afternoon to relieve Kaulana and Michelle as they had a funeral to attend in Southern California. I went back to the hospital that afternoon. Dr. Beal came in and said she didn't think he would need the major abdominal surgery, which was a huge relief. We just tried to keep his room dark and quiet so that he could rest and try to recover from everything.

This is Kurt's arm, 1 day post-angiogram.

Friday, February 14th - Valentine's Day
Even though they were pumping him full of fluids and stool softeners and laxatives, we had our constipation problem back. At 2 am we were walking the halls trying to get things moving for Kurt. His colon was not a happy camper. They had to get aggressive again towards his constipation problem and were able to get things moving again. The constipation problem led to another problem - Kurt didn't want to take pain meds because they caused the constipation but if he didn't take them, he was in pain. It was a real battle and balancing act trying to keep him comfortable and not constipated, poor guy. Kurt had also received some liver damage probably from a chunk of the blood clot breaking off and getting into his liver. It wasn't major damage but they were watching his liver closely and the numbers continued to improve daily.

Both Dr. Beal and Dr. Hayes were going to be out of town this weekend so the plan was that their senior partner, Dr. Clayson, was going to watch him. If anything started going the wrong direction, they would transfer him down to UC Davis and they would perform the surgery there. We prayed this would not happen.

They did an MRI to try to get another look at the artery without using all the die and radiation that the ct scan uses. They were not able to get the pictures that they wanted so Dr. Beal talked to the radiologist before she left and explained exactly what she was looking for. They made some setting adjustments and they were going to do it again on Saturday.

Saturday, February 15th
We actually got a decent nights sleep Friday night to Saturday morning. We had hardly slept for 11 nights and this night we actually got some sleep so we felt better on Saturday. Dr. Clayson came in and met with us. They did the 2nd MRI to look at the celiac artery.

3 days post-angiogram.

Sunday, February 16th
Kurt was feisty. He was done being in the hospital and wanted to go home. He couldn't stand our room anymore (remember how gross and nasty it was?). He was willing to try to make a break for it but he moved so slow, he knew they would catch him before he got to the elevators. For some reason, his sense of smell became super sensitive and he could smell everything and he hated it! He took lots of walks to get out of our room but the halls didn't smell much better. He was going nuts in there. I took that as a good sign that he was feeling better because if he didn't care then that meant he didn't feel good enough to notice. Dr. Clayson came in and said the radiologist thought the clot looked stable and that Kurt might be able to go home on Monday, depending on how Dr. Beal thought it looked. They agreed to reduce his number of iv's from 3 down to 2 and remove his heart monitoring equipment in preparation for his release. He showered and even got permission to leave the floor and sit outside. Unfortunately, he ran out of energy before we made it off the floor but I think he felt better just knowing he could escape if he needed to.

4 days post-angiogram

Monday, February 17th
We had high hopes of going home today. Kurt had some more pains this morning which scared us. They spiked pretty quick and then came down pretty quick. They started giving him Nitro with the attacks and it seemed to help settle them down quicker. We were upset that he had gone several days without pain and now he was experiencing it again. Dr. Beal came in and she said that she didn't like what she saw on the MRI. The radiologist and Dr. Clayson had looked at the scans as it was stable, meaning it hadn't changed. She was looking at the scans hoping to see that it had "organized" (meaning the clots had hunkered down and attached to the artery walls and had started to solidify) and I guess that was not what she was seeing. She said she thought that we needed to do the major abdominal surgery on Wednesday. We were upset and Kurt looked like he was physically hit when she gave us the news. We went from thinking we were going home to planning for a major surgery plus at least another week in the hospital. We were devastated. Kurt asked and begged to be moved to another section of the hospital. The drama on this floor was just too much. A "gangster" guy had moved into the room across the hall and played rap music really loud. We had asked to have him turn it down but it didn't happen and there were several security guards watching different patients on that floor. We were just miserable there. She said she would see what she could do. We started making arrangements to prepare for the surgery. I went home to once again shower and get more clothes. I packed a bigger bag planning on a longer stay this time. Dr. Beal called back while I was at home and said that they decided not to do the surgery on Wednesday. They were trying to gather more information from different doctors all over the country and even up in Canada. They were getting a 50/50 response as to whether they should do the surgery or not. They wanted more time to figure it out. We were glad that the surgery was on hold but it was very scary not to know what to expect or to know that they don't know how to help you.

Tuesday, February 18th
We were moved to a new room! We were so excited! It is a private room with our own bathroom, thermostat and we can shut the doors and not hear any of the hallway noise. We were so blessed! We loaded all our goods onto the cart and happily said good bye to the 4 North wing!

Our new room was at least twice as big as the last one. Plus it was in the new section of the hospital so it was CLEAN!!!

That couch behind me folded into a bed so I had more space to sleep.

Kurt liked to raise his bed up high so he could look at the view out the window.

After they moved him to his new room, he went down for an ultrasound. They wanted to look at all his organs and make sure nothing else was having problems in there. They had noticed on the other scans, and the ultrasound showed it too, that his gallbladder wall looked thickened. They weren't too sure if that meant anything but they were watching it.

He had had to fast for the ultrasound so he was starving by the time he got back to his room. I had picked up lunch from the cafeteria on my way back to the room so I shared my lunch with him. After lunch they have him some drinkable potassium because his potassium level was low. This was a horrible drink and ended up making him throw up violently. If you ever have to take potassium, ask of it in the iv - the drinkable stuff is no good!

Every time his body exerts a force (coughing, sneezing, vomiting, etc.) I am so worried that he will tear the artery more or the aneurysm will rupture. I think this will be an ongoing worry until we do something to block off that artery.

6 days post-angiogram

Wednesday, February 19th
They started to wonder if his gallbladder was causing him trouble because he was battling nausea a lot and was still having some pain so they decided to do a HIDA scan to test his gallbladder. They found that it wasn't contracting as it should. Dr. Beal went to talk to a general surgeon and see what they thought but she was thinking it might need to be removed.

Thursday, February 20th
Kurt had a great day today. He was up, showered, and walked around the floor. Dr. Jakobsen, a general surgeon, came and saw us first thing in the morning and said she didn't think the gallbladder needed to be removed. She thought that it was just irritated from everything going on in there and that it wasn't contracting correctly because it had hardly been used the last few weeks. She really thought it would be just fine so the surgery for that was put on hold. His blood work also looked fine for the gallbladder so her suggestion was just to watch it. She thought it would settle down.

Kurt had received some cards from his young men at church. This made him so happy. We put them in the window and every single doctor or nurse that came in commented on his cards. Kurt felt so loved!

The kids were able to come see him. I picked them up from school and brought them down. They had a great time spending time with dad.

I could just hug this little guy all day long. Poor baby just didn't understand why mom and dad were not coming home. 

Since the surgeries had all been put on hold, they put him back on his blood thinners. In order to leave the hospital, his INR had to be between 2.0 and 3.0. Today he was at 1.5.

Friday, February 21st
Kurt showed signs of a reaction to the heparin they had him on. It is a blood thinner through iv and he had been on it for awhile (I can't remember when they started it - I think it was the day the arm angiogram failed). His platelet count dropped so they immediately stopped the heparin and ran a special test to make sure it was the heparin that dropped the platelets and not something else. It is a test that has to be sent out so the results will be back in a day or 2. Only 2-3% of people will have a reaction and, of course, Kurt was one of them. They started him on coumadin, which is a pill blood thinner. He had a good day today and was even able to get outside for the first time in weeks! His blood level dropped to 1.3 because of the change up in blood thinners.

Saturday, February 22nd
He started off with a good day. The kids came to see him, which always cheered him up.

I could tell he was hurting but he didn't want to take any pain meds because of those darn side effects so he tried to tough it out. Late that afternoon he got really sick to his stomach and was hurting pretty bad. He took 2 Norco but needed the dose of dilaudid through his iv to get it under control plus they had to give him anti-nausea meds through his iv too. We had plans with our friends, Steve and Christine, to have a double date in our room. When they arrived, he wasn't feeling good at all. It took a little bit but once all the meds kicked in, he felt better and ate the yummy food they had brought us. He actually ate the whole plate they brought him. We each had the same super yummy teriyaki chicken, rice and veggies and none of us even came close to finishing our plates but he ate the whole thing! I guess we were going to test out that gallbladder really good tonight! 

His blood level was at 1.4 today and we got confirmation that yes, he was in fact allergic to heparin. His new primary doctor (he got a different one when he switched rooms) came in this morning and made me mad. She had been pretty good up to this point because when we first met her, she came in right when Kurt was throwing up from the potassium. She felt really bad for him and was really nice every time she came in. But this day she came in and said that she was increasing his coumadin dosage from 5 mg to 6 mg. We had been told by our nurse and Cathleen, the vascular surgeon's PA, that the pharmacist didn't want Kurt's level going up too fast, that they wanted it to go up nice and slow. I mentioned this to her because I think you need to always ask questions, especially when you get differing opinions. Her response was literally: "I am the doctor. I do not listen to pharmacists. They listen to me. I make the decisions!" Ok . . . good to know. So I went around her and asked Dr. Clayson (who was covering that weekend) and I asked our nurse. Our nurse (his name was Ilie and he was also awesome) had called the pharmacist as soon as he read her notes to increase the dosage. The pharmacist said that it was a reasonable thing to do. Dr. Clayson also went to check and see what she had done and said the same thing - that the amount she increased it was reasonable so I felt better about that. I just don't like the egotistical games those darn primaries seem to play. (Just a side note: it is quite funny to see how they back down when the vascular surgeon walks in the room! There is a definite pecking order.)

Sunday, February 23rd

It was a good quiet day. His blood level was at 1.6 so we were not discharged again. I don't think too much happened this day. A helicopter landed at midnight so we got up and walked down to see it but it was too dark and we couldn't see anything. (The waiting area on our floor had a perfect viewing of the helicopter landing pad and Kurt had been waiting all week to see a helicopter land. One finally did and we couldn't see anything. Bummer).

Monday, February 24th

Blood level at 1.8, almost there! Kurt was up most of the day. He did take a good nap late morning. Overall, just another quiet day. We like those days. That means nothing crazy is going on. No tests, nothing. I went out and got us lunch from the teriyaki place that we ate the other night with our friends. When I came back, I was hit in the parking garage. Luckily the damage was very minor and didn't do more other than shake my already frazzled nerves. I didn't even tell Kurt about it until today because I was typing this. I didn't want him worrying about one more thing.

We had received more cards from our nieces and nephews and so our window was even more beautiful. We had a great time reading each one and felt so loved! Thank you for our notes!

Tuesday, February 25th

Blood level was 2.3!!!! We were going home! Our nurse was one we had not had before but we liked her and she understood our need to get out of there! Everyone did their paperwork as quickly as possible so we were moving pretty quick. I went to get the car and they called for a discharge transport. Kurt decided he didn't need to wait for the transport and walked out with the nurse pushing a wheel chair behind him just incase he got tired. He was so excited to be released.

I think someone else was excited to have his daddy home!

Napping buddies

13 days post-angiogram

Wow. I did it! It has taken me a week to get this typed and finished. I can't believe everything we went through. It seems like a blur of total crazy. We completely lost the month of February. I worked in the office February 3rd and didn't go back until March 3rd. A whole month is just gone.

Like, I said before, Kurt is doing good. It is just really scary that he isn't fixed. Nothing has changed and that means that if it happened before, it can happen again. And that is our biggest fear. We just keep praying that he will continue to heal. The blood clots will never go away but hopefully the tear will heal and become stable. I just don't like that aneurysm sitting there. I feel like as long as that is there, he is in danger.

I am going to do a post about what exactly he has because a lot of people don't understand exactly what is going on. Hopefully I will get that up quicker than this one. Please let me know if you have any questions, and I will do my best to answer them.

The Story of Kurt's Hospitalization (Tuesday - Thursday)

I shared the "short" version of the story last night on Facebook. If you want all the details of what has happened in the last 2 days (Tuesday 5 pm to Thursday 11:14 pm) , here you go:

Tuesday evening at 5 pm I was just finishing dinner when Kurt came into the kitchen and leaned over onto the counter and said "my stomach suddenly hurts." I asked him questions like: what happened? What does it feel like? He said he stood up and it felt like something popped or ripped or fell or something weird. I wasn't too terribly concerned but thought the description he gave was kind of odd. We sat down to eat and he wouldn't eat. He wanted to but just felt too icky so he laid down on the couch. He had an appointment with clients at 6 so he went. I thought he couldn't have been too bad if he was going and thought he probably just had gas. Hey, you wanted the details so there you go. =-)

At 7 he was suppose to go to a church youth activity after his appointment but he came home instead and laid down on the couch again saying "man, my stomach really hurts." I asked him if he wanted to go into the ER or Med7 or something and he said "no. I just want to lay here and see if it goes away." So I took Hailey to her church activity at 7 and then went to pick her up at 8. He called me while I was at the church getting Hailey and asked when I would be home. I said I was waiting for Hailey to finish. He told me to hurry. I knew something wasn't right. He then text me a few minutes later "where are you?" I was about 5 minutes from the house. By the time I pulled in the driveway, he was walking out to get in the car. It is now about 8:15 and the kids still were not in bed yet. He said "we need to go. I can't take this anymore." I said "let me at least put T to bed and then we will go." I can't remember exactly what he said but it was something like "no, let's go. Hailey can do it." So we left.

We have a Sutter hospital 5 minutes from our house but unfortunately it is not on our insurance. We are on the Mercy system and there are 2 hospital within 20 minutes of us. So I start typing in the address for Mercy San Juan and he says "what are you doing?" Me: "Finding the address to the hospital." Kurt: "We are going 5 minutes away. You know how to get there." Me: "No, we can't go to that hospital." Kurt: "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!" He knew this since T wasn't born there but he apparently had forgotten in his pain. So a mild argument pursued as we tried to agree where to take him. He didn't want to go to Mercy San Juan as it is an older hospital and he doesn't like the area that it is in. So we decided to go to Mercy in Folsom. The whole way there he is telling me how to drive: "Go faster." "Go around that guy." "Change lanes." Just for the record, I was driving pretty fast but he was just so miserable, it wasn't fast enough. It was a rough trip there. I also called our friends, Marty and Lorraine, and asked if one of them could go be with the kids. Marty went over and put the boys to bed and stayed at the house with them.

We arrived at 9 pm, signed in and sat down. Except Kurt couldn't sit still. He kept squirming and shifting and then he would walk and then he would sit down again. He was just hurting so bad. We were called back into the triage room at 9:15. They could tell he was hurting and immediate ordered the ct scan. I thought "great, this is moving right along." It took about 15 minutes for the ct guys to bring the nasty drink down that he had to drink. They said that the clock would start from when he finished the liquid and 1.5 hours after he finished, they would do the ct scan. I have never seen Kurt drink something so fast in my life. It was a huge cup of nasty tasting stuff and he drank it like it was water and he hadn't had water in days. 9:35 the clock started and we were looking at an 11:15 pm ct scan.

So we waited. And he squirmed. And we waited. And he squirmed. We watched people come and people go. The nurse gave him an iv so that he would be ready for when the ct guys came for him. They finally called him back to do some blood work and then we sat and squirmed some more. 11:15 came . . . and went. Finally at 11:30 I asked them about the ct scan because Kurt was just miserable. They said they were waiting for the lab work to come back because they had to make sure his kidneys would handle the dye that they use. I asked if they could check on the labs and wouldn't you know it - they were back (and apparently no one notice???) so they called the ct guys to come get him. And we waited some more. Sheesh. Nobody rushes in hospitals! They finally came and got him just before midnight. He came back and said it would be about 30 minutes before we would have the results.

WEDNESDAY - Ok, so no one rushes until there is a problem. Only 20 minutes later, the nurse came and said "we have a room for you." I thought "wait. We have been here almost 3.5 hours now, isn't it about time for us to leave? Why put us in a room now?" That was my first red flag.

We go in the room and she asks Kurt to undress and put on a gown. Red flag #2 as I realized we weren't leaving anytime soon - if only I knew what was to come.

Then she asks "did we do an EKG on you?" Whoa. Now the warning bells are ringing in my head so I asked her "Why would he need an EKG? The pain is in his abdomen." Her response: "The doctor will talk to you about it."  And turns around to enter more stuff into the computer.

Now the bells are screaming at me. She starts calling out for different medicines (pain and blood pressure meds) and asked the other nurse to bring in the EKG machine and then the doctor came in. He explained that they found an aneurysm on the iliac artery. That is a BAD WORD! VERY BAD WORD! I know what an aneurysm is and never wanted it used in the same sentence as my husband.

An aneurysm is a bulge (kind of like a bubble) that forms on an artery and if it pops people can die within minutes because all their blood flows out of the arteries and into the body. The iliac artery is the artery that branches off the aorta artery (the main one that runs down your whole abdomen) and it feds your liver, spleen, stomach and a few other goodies you have floating around in there.

Then he says it looks like it has started leaking blood.

Shock. That's all I can say to explain what we felt. Pure shock. And the knowledge that this was bad.

The nurse then comes back in and gives Kurt another iv in the other arm explaining that if he crashes (or "pops") they need to be able to access his veins right away.  Totally freaked us out! They also said that he would not be leaving the hospital and would need to be transferred to another hospital that could handle this and that he would need surgery to repair it. We couldn't believe everything that was happening.

At 12:30 am we decided to call my dad and Karen and have them go be at the house so Marty could go home and get some sleep before he had to go to work. About 1 am we then found ourselves alone in the room and we just looked at each other.

Then Kurt started to give me reminders on how to raise our children. "Remember to keep Trevor out of the street." "Make sure Evan feels confident and strong." "Remember this or teach the girls that" I started crying. I told him "YOU ARE NOT GOING ANYWHERE! YOU WILL BE FINE! DON'T YOU DARE THINK THAT YOU ARE LEAVING ME!" Oh man, that was tough. The tears are flowing now just trying to type this. It was horrible.

We felt like he was ticking time bomb that could go off at any minute. Every dr. or nurse that came in the room said something like : "man, are you lucky you came in." Even the nurse from the front of the ER came back to check on him. I guess people rarely walk in with this condition. They usually come in via ambulance bleeding or don't even make it to the hospital.

At 3 am they loaded him onto the gurney and into an ambulance to transport him to Mercy General in downtown Sacramento. The seat belt went right across his abdomen and we were worried that the belt might cause a problem or even just the bouncing of the ambulance might cause something to happen. They reassured me that he would be in good hands. I followed the ambulance for the whole 30 minute drive and I just kept thinking "Don't turn on the lights. Please don't turn on the lights" because I knew that if they did that he would have "crashed" and we were in trouble.

We made it to the hospital with NO lights turning on around 3:30 am. He was taken straight up to the Cardiac ICU. After trying to find my way around the hospital, I finally located him. They got him hooked up to machines, took his stats, and his medical history (which he has none because he has never been hospitalized before). His room was freezing and I mean FREEZING! I was so cold. Mercy General is a really, really old hospital and doesn't have individual room thermostats so we had no control over it and they said that room NEVER warms up. Great. So they brought us lots of heated blankets.

About 4 am a general doctor came in to check on him. He went over everything again and told the nurse not to let the first number in his blood pressure get over 130. So I watched his blood pressure like a hawk. They had given him blood pressure medicine at Folsom (it was one of the meds the nurse was calling for when we first got in the room) so his blood pressure remained stable.

Around 5 am they drew blood and then things settled down a little bit. We had now been awake for 23 hours straight and were exhausted. We tried to close our eyes for a little bit but it was impossible to sleep. He had monitors beeping and the blood pressure cuff was going off every so often and I was in a really old, uncomfortable chair and was still freezing. Plus they checked on him a lot and had changed his pain med to morphine. It wasn't working nearly as good as the previous one so he was hurting again. I think we were able to doze a little here and there but we didn't sleep.

I think about 5:30 they came and took x-rays. After that we were wide awake again trying to cope and deal with what was going on. We were told that the vascular surgeon would be in to talk to us about what would need to be done. We waited and hoped that he would be in before he started his day. We asked for the better pain med because the morphine just wasn't cutting it. They were able to get the other one approved (I can't remember the name of it).

At about 6 we started calling and texting family to let them know what was going on. I had Kurt's phone and my phone on my lap and they started going nuts with family and friends calling and texting as the news spread, letting us know that they were there for us if we needed anything. We needed that love and support. It was so great! The kids were also texting trying to figure out what was going on. I didn't want to scare them so I just said that daddy had a boo boo on a blood artery that they needed to look at. I didn't have them go to school because I just couldn't coordinate finding uniforms, packing lunches and transporting them. I had Trevor's car seat in the Tahoe at the hospital so it was just better that everyone stayed home. I was suppose to work that day so Ashley, our nanny, was already scheduled to come. She stayed with the kids all day.

At 7 we got a new nurse and we really liked her. The other one was okay but we really felt this one cared and was invested in Kurt. She was really on top of things and made things happen. We liked her a lot.

At about 8:20 Sean and Dan arrived to give Kurt a blessing. We are so grateful for friends who are willing to take time out of their work day to come and take care of Kurt. At about 8:30ish, Rick arrived. He spent the day with us and are so grateful for his presence! Kurt was exhausted (he doesn't function well normally when he is exhausted plus add on the stress of everything and then mix in some serious pain meds and you have one sleepy Kurt) so it was so nice to have another set of ears to hear everything they are telling you because they tell you so much so fast, you can't catch it all.

Our nurse said that if the vascular surgeon hadn't come in by 9, she would page him. At 9:10 she came in and said "I just paged him so hopefully he will be here shortly." She was just on top of things. We never had to remind her or ask her to do anything.

I think he came in around 9:30 or 10 and he brought good news. The aneurysm isn't as bad as Folsom had thought. It wasn't leaking blood and it wasn't even a full blown "bubble" aneurysm. Kurt has what is called a dissected artery. That means that the inside lining of the artery has been damaged somehow and that blood is leaking between the layers of the artery. He doesn't have a "bubble" that is ready to pop any minute. THANK GOODNESS!!!! The artery is swollen and obviously has a problem but it isn't as serious as they had thought. His plan of action was to actually wait and see if it repaired itself so that meant no surgery for Kurt on Wednesday! Some people can have the dissection heal on its own. Obviously if it isn't treated and doesn't heal itself then it will lead to the bubble aneurysm (that is my term, not a medical term) but we were so blessed to have caught this early. If it doesn't heal on its own then they have to go in and put a stint in it to repair it. So the doctor said that he could be moved out of the ICU (as long as his blood pressure stayed down) and into a regular hospital room but that he would have to stay for a day or two to be monitored and checked.

At 10:30 am, I finally went down and got some breakfast because I was starving. Kurt was starving too because they wouldn't let him eat or drink anything thinking he was going to have surgery that day. By the time I got to the cafeteria, breakfast had been put away but lunch wasn't out yet so I just got a bagel and a juice. I went back to the room and shared it with Kurt. Things settled down again after that and we made more phone calls and sent more texts updating everyone. I think we were able to doze a little bit more again. We weren't very good company for Rick but I know he understood. Around 11 or 11:30, Rick went down and got us some hamburgers for lunch.

I can't remember what time exactly he was moved out of the ICU, I think it was around 2. He was receiving pain meds when he asked for them which was about every 2 hours. My dad showed up to visit Kurt and we got settled in the new room. I think my dad and Rick left about 3. They finally brought in the lunch that we had requested for Kurt and it didn't look good so I went to the cafeteria to get him a hamburger and fried because he said he was hungry. When I got back he ate a few fries but didn't touch the hamburger. He wasn't feeling good suddenly.

It was 4 and we decided to try to rest. It had now been 34 hours with little rest and the exhaustion was catching up to us. I curled up at the bottom of his bed and we feel "asleep". I say "asleep" because it was constantly interrupted by them coming in to take stats or to draw blood or to give him pain medicine or by a phone going off but it was the closest thing we had had to sleep in a long time.

They were drawing his blood every 4 hours to watch his blood count and his liver levels. Since this artery feeds the liver, they were watching it for signs that it wasn't getting enough blood. They also had him on heart monitors watching his heart rate to look for any signs of danger that way too.

We were back up at 5:00 pm when they came into do something. I can't remember what it was but I had to get off the bed. We told the nurse about his stomach not feeling good. She gave him more pain meds and an anti-neausea medicine. By 6, when dinner arrived, he was hungry again and ate all his dinner. I left at 6:30 and got home at 7 to be with the kids and to get them ready for bed. By the time I got in bed at 9 pm, it had been 39 hours since I had really slept. If you told me I would stay awake for 39 hours, I would have said you were nuts but I guess you do what you have to do when you have to do it.

He slept good Wednesday night and didn't ask for any pain meds until about 6:45 Thursday morning. The pain was different that time. Usually the pain was around his belly button and would spread to his back but this was more of a sick feeling, not so much a direct pain. He thought the pain meds were upsetting his stomach but once he took he pain med, he felt much better. I arrived at 9 am this morning and he took more medicine at 9:45 but didn't take any all day long. He has felt really good today and was able to get up and walk the halls with me. He wanted Chipotle for lunch so I was brave and explored the one way roads of downtown Sac to get him Chipotle, which he ate all of. We are hoping the dissection is healing itself and that maybe, just maybe, he might come home tomorrow. They are going to do another CT scan in the morning and then we will go from there.

Here is our Chipotle picnic lunch in his hospital bed.

*****

It is now 11:14 pm Thursday night and he just gave us a big scare. His blood pressure has been good all day and stayed at or below the 130 mark. He called me at 9:14 pm and said that his blood pressure was 138 (I can't remember the bottom number). He had been this high once in the ICU but has been lower since he was moved. The nurse gave him blood pressure medicine and then was going to recheck it at 10:15. He text me at 10:24 and it was 143/96! I immediately called him. That is the highest it has been since he went into the hospital. We started worrying big time. It shouldn't be that high. I hate not being there to be on top of what is going on and being able to talk to the nurse myself. She recommended giving him some pain meds because he was having some discomfort. Tonight the pain is more of a pressure pain and higher up in his abdomen. So the nurse gave him more pain med at 10:30 and said she would recheck his pressure at 11:15. I stayed on the phone with him while we waited for the time to pass. He fell asleep but I just kept typing this post and waited for her to come in. At 11:05 she came in and rechecked it. He is now down to 124/83. Whew! I don't like that it went up like that. Don't like it at all. Now I am worried that maybe he isn't healing like we thought earlier. Oh man.

I am going to try to go get some sleep. I think I got everything in here. Tomorrow we shall have more answers. Praying for the best and safest solution for him. Please keep him in your prayers. And a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who has helped us out! I can't tell you how much I appreciate being able to be with him all day long and not worry about the kids, or meals, or laundry, or anything else at home. You are all AMAZING! THANK YOU SO MUCH!

(to be continued)

A Quarantined Christmas and a brand New Year

The last month and a half has been pretty crazy around here. Seriously. Like we have called "TRUCE" and "TIME OUT" several times but life just keeps dishing it out to us. Here are just a few of the things that have happened around here:

Hosted Thanksgiving - 26 of our favorite peps. We were so excited to have everyone for Thanksgiving. It was a bit overwhelming to me to plan and organize and make sure I had everything covered. Thank goodness for great helpers! We had a blast with all our family!

Evan was baptized & we hosted a luncheon - just a small, little luncheon for 36! I didn't think I could pull off 2 HUGE meals within 2 days of each other so we catered the luncheon with Panda Express. This was a great idea except for the fact that I ordered enough food for 60! (Not everyone RSVP'd and I wanted to make sure I had enough incase everyone showed up and when you are planning for this many, you tend to over order because it would be awful to under order!). We wouldn't let people leave unless they took a lot of food with them. And even then we ate Panda for a very. long. time.

Cody's illness and passing - we don't need to reopen that wound.

Flu Bug Invasion - a week after Cody passed, we were infected with a flu bug. T started us off with it and freaked us out because one of the signs of the leptospirosis disease is vomiting. I was talking to his doctor regularly, either me calling him or him calling me to check on T. I was very grateful for his concern and checking in with us. I was constantly checking the whites of T's eyes to make sure they weren't turning yellow. It was a scary time. Kurt was even watching him like a hawk. It turned out just to be a flu bug that lasted 2 WEEKS in this house; the week before Christmas and the week of Christmas, hence the quarantined Christmas. Every time we thought we were safe to go out again, the next person would come down with it. No fun. We missed all the fun parties we were invited to. We had a very lazy, relaxed Christmas day.

Rodent Invasion - we also had a rodent decide to take up residence in our attic. Kurt got poison and threw it up there. He reassured me that the rodent would get thirsty and go for water and die outside the attic. Except, apparently, our rodent didn't read the directions on the bag of poison and decided to die in our attic. The smell was horrid. Kurt tried and tried to find it in the attic but we think it may have fallen in a wall because he couldn't find it. And it smelled bad. Really bad. We wanted to move. But we didn't.

Cody's final hospital bill arrived - you know you are in trouble when the bill is 4 pages long.

Our office helper moved - we are so sad. Barbara was a wonderful employee and we will miss her terribly. Her husband was accepted to a school in Utah so they moved away. And now I am running the office all by myself again. Boo.

T decided "No more naps!"  - Yes, T decided he didn't WANT to nap anymore even though he (and his mom) desperately NEEP nap time . You all know this phase. It isn't pretty. My other kids were like 4 when they did this. Not 2 1/2. We went about a week without him taking naps. Not good times. I now have him taking a nap *most* of the time. It is a battle and sometimes I lose BUT sometimes I win!

T also learned how to climb out of his crib - hence the nap time (and bedtime) becoming more challenging. Joy, oh joy! He is so sneaky too. Today I went to check on him because I had heard his door close and he had apparently been sneaking out a lot because he had a lot more stuffed animals in his crib than when I had put him down. Little turkey.

T flooded the bathroom - he went into the upstairs kids bathroom, pulled the stopper up, turned on both faucets and then came downstairs to where I was. I was in the office working and he was sitting so quietly playing on the floor. I could hear the water running upstairs but I thought one of the girls was in the shower. I didn't even worry about it. By the time Evan found it, the sink had overflowed running into all the drawers and cupboards and onto the floor. The whole bathroom floor was full of water and it was overflowing into the carpet in the hallway. I couldn't believe it. I just stood there looking at it and trying to figure out how in the world I was going to clean up all that water. We haven't noticed any water damage down stairs but I have noticed the baseboards and the floor in the bathroom are starting to show damage. I wasn't planning on a bathroom remodel and hope this doesn't turn into one.

Evan's allergy testing - we took Evan to get his allergies tested and it turns out he is allergic to everything! Poor kid reacted to everything they put on him except 2 things - dogs and one group of trees. He had the biggest reaction to cats, which was interesting, but at least it wasn't dogs. (We are now free and clear to get another dog if, and when, we are ready. We were worried he was allergic to dogs and we wouldn't get another one if he had been). He is super allergic to dust and molds so I came home and had to complete dissect his room and clean it like crazy. I am not a good duster but I guess I will become one now. We have always thought that he was possibly allergic to Christmas trees but couldn't figure it out because some years he would react to them being in the house and some years he wouldn't. Well, we learned that it isn't the actual tree, necessarily, that he is allergic to but the molds that can grow on the trees. That's why it would fluctuate every year - it depended on how long the tree had been cut and how much mold was growing on it. Needless to say, we bought an artificial tree this year so no more moldy trees for us! Plus, no more putting lights on the tree! Yippee!

All that within a 5 week period. Sheesh. Seriously, TRUCE already! Plus all the Christmas shopping, cabin fever for being trapped in the house for so long, a home show that Kurt was a vender at, and all the other "normal" family of 6 stuff. And I wonder why I am so tired all the time?

And now I discovered last night that we have another tenant living upstairs (aka: our attic). Man, oh man. How do we get rid of it without it dying in the attic and making that horrible smell again? Maybe we should get a cat, except Evan is allergic to cats. Nuts.

But it is a new year now so everything should settle down, right? It is like a "reset" button and now life can just be boring and normal again, right?

Right?

Our boy, Cody

Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook know the horrid week we have had. For those of you who aren’t on FB, this week was bad and ended yesterday in the passing of our 4 year old lab, Cody. At the end of this post, I will include all the details as to what transpired but first I want to share what a wonderful dog he was.

Cody truly was the best dog. I know people say that when a pet passes but he really was.

He rarely barked. He was so quiet, even in the car. He loved to go for rides and would just sit quietly or lay down and enjoy the ride. When he did bark, he sounded pretty tough. It was a deep, scary bark but anyone that knew him knew that he was actually a big marshmallow that wouldn’t hurt a fly. We didn’t let strangers know that though.

He was obedient and a quick learner. Kayla loved teaching him new tricks. She worked really good with him and he could do all sorts of things - shake, roll over, go through (her legs), stay, down, spin, and she was working on jumping through the hoola hoop. I don’t think that was his favorite but he would do anything for a treat.

He was spiritual. He prayed with the kids. (I have a picture but can’t find it right now). Every night when we kneeled by each kid’s bed and said prayers with them, Cody joined right in by putting his front legs on the bed but leaving the bottom ones on the ground. It was his way of kneeling next to the kids. For family prayers he would come lay by us as we said the prayer and as soon as “Amen” was said, he would jump right up. He was a very reverent dog.

He was a water boy. You couldn’t keep that guy out of water if he saw it. He loved him some water! Which is, unfortunately, probably what killed him.

He was smart. He knew our routine and would do his part in it without being asked. Every morning when we would get ready for school he was out and about with us in the kitchen but when it got close to time to leave, he would disappear. He would go get in his crate without anyone telling him to. He loved his crate and had no problems going in it. Going to church was the same. He got so crafty at it that he would go get in his crate and we would often forget to shut the door and he would have free roam of the house while we were gone. Although we always thought he stayed in his crate until we returned.

He loved to be part of what we were doing. He thought he was one of the kids, always in the middle of what was going on. He loved to go on walks with me. He was my training buddy there for awhile. He was always in the middle of what we were doing. Even when building cardboard boats, he wanted in on the action.

He was a great snuggler. For being 86 pounds he could snuggle in a way that didn’t feel like 86 pounds. He slept on our bed, on my side at the foot BUT every night when I get up with T, he would be between Kurt and I, on his back with his legs sprawled everywhere but by the morning, we would wake up, and he would be back at the foot of the bed. I always knew what he was getting away with while we were sleeping.

He was fun to play with. Kurt and Cody would wrestle like nobodies business. The two would go at it and everyone enjoyed watching them. Cody knew where the lines were and didn’t cross them in being too aggressive with Kurt. He was just the right level of aggressive fun for Kurt. But he also knew the difference between playing with Kurt and playing with the kids. When the kids (or sometime even me) would wrestle him, he would be so soft and gentle. He let T crawl all over him and he never made a fuss about it or got mad. 

He had a funny way of laying down. He always sprawled his hips out. Sometimes he would tuck his front legs under his body and he looked like a seal. It was always something people commented on. 

He was a great helper. Every morning I would say, “Come on Cody. We need to go wake up the girls.” We would go into their room and I would go to Hailey and Cody would jump on Kayla’s bed and snuggle in to wake her up. Usually he ended up cuddling in with her and not waking her up. I would give him a funny, hard time and Kayla would say he was doing a perfect job and snuggle up even more to him. She really struggling with getting up right now. Every morning the first thing she knows is that Cody isn’t there.

 He loved to go camping. We usually pull the trailer home 3 days before we leave so that we can charge the batteries and clean it, if needed. As soon as he knew it was out front, he followed me around and not let me out of sight. He didn’t want to get left behind.

He just was an amazing dog. We loved him so much and will truly, truly miss him. We love you Cody!

So here is what happened. I am actually writing this more for me because I think I need to get it out. When things like this happen, you are in shock and so much information gets thrown at you so fast and you have to make quick decisions and all this is still bouncing around in my head. I am hoping that by getting it out, I can let it go. So read if you want but you don’t have to.

Thursday, Nov 28, Thanksgiving - we had a house-full. 26 people, I believe. Everything seemed fine.

Friday - He threw up a few times (maybe 2 or 3). We weren’t concerned because he had always been a pukey dog, ever since he was a puppy. Usually he would eat a toy or a hair rubberband and then throw it up. Plus with Thanksgiving the day before, we figured he ate some human food. We didn’t feed him people food but with everyone here and little kids carrying food around or leaving plates unattended, we just thought he got some people food. We were not concerned about turkey bones because Kurt had carved the turkey, removed all the meat from the bones and then tied up and threw away the bird so we knew there were no bones for him to get. We weren't even worry about it.

Saturday - Evan was baptized and we hosted a lunch for about 36 people. We didn’t feed him that morning because we wanted to let his tummy rest. Plus who wants a puking dog at a party? He seemed fine, ran around with people outside. I don’t think he was 100% but I definitely didn’t think anything was seriously wrong. He did throw up during Saturday night  which did kind of worry us because there wasn’t anything in him to throw up plus his vomiting hadn't lasted this long before.

Sunday - he was a lot more lazy. Just kind of laid around. That evening he drank some water and immediately threw it up. Ok, this worried us. We figured that something he ate must be stuck in him. We took him to his vet, which also happens to be a pet hospital so at least they had all his records. They took x-rays and did an ultrasound but didn’t notice anything stuck in him. They did notice that he was dehydrated and that his stomach looked like it had gas in it and the lining of a section of his intestine looked thicker than normal. This was called gastroindo. . .something, I can’t remember. They said he probably ate something that upset/possibly scratched his stomach or intestines and it just needed to heal. They gave him fluids and told us to feed him a very bland diet of chicken and rice and to gradually increase the amounts if he kept them down.

Monday - I made him chicken and rice which he ate each time I put it down. He ate the chicken and kind of left the rice but he didn’t throw up so we thought he was on the mend. He also peed a lot because of all the fluids they gave him. We thought things were ok.

Tuesday - We noticed that each day his activity level decreased. Kurt got him to eat about 6 bite size pieces of chicken at about 11 am. The rest of the day he refused anything we gave him. This worried us because he always ate everything (including toys and hair bands) but not even chicken would pass his lips. We kept trying (bread, pasta, chicken, cottage cheese) and by dinner, we were really getting worried. Kurt had Mutual (a church activity) to go to and so we decided that I would try again while he was gone. Kurt came home determined to get him to eat. Cody would always do anything for Kurt but this night he would NOT eat. We decided he need to go back to the vet. Of course, we were now after hours and it was an ER visit again. I took him while Kurt stayed home with the kids. The vet came in looked in his eyes, which I couldn’t see from where I was sitting but then she flipped back his ear and I knew immediately we were in trouble. The skin in his ears was yellow. She then showed me the whites of his eyes which were not white, they were yellow. My mom immediately popped in my mind because when her liver started shutting down, she turned yellow too. I knew he had liver problems. She wanted to admit him and do lab work which I immediately agreed to. I went home and she called us at about 11:30 pm with the lab results. His liver definitely showed that something was wrong. It also showed a kidney level at 1.9. The normal level is 1 with 1.8 being a high normal so they just thought that it was slightly high because he had been dehydrated. They were not concerned with his kidneys, just his liver. They wanted to give him some medicine for his liver during the night, we agreed.

Wednesday - the vet called and told us that after the blood draw the night before, the site wouldn’t stop bleeding. Cody’s blood wasn’t clotting correctly. This can be a definite sign of liver failure. She tested his clotting factors and discovered that in fact they were out of normal range. Due to the elevated liver levels and the clotting problem, they declared him in liver failure. We had hope because the liver can regenerate but it would just depend on the damage done to it and if enough of it was left undamaged to regenerate. It would just take time to know. Kurt and I actually went down after the call to talk to the vet in person because so much can be lost over the phone. She was really concerned about him and his prognosis. She said that, due to the clotting problem, he needed a plasma transfusion otherwise he could start bleeding uncontrollably. We agreed to it. She said that he would get worse before he got better and that they would redraw his blood again that night to compare to the labs from the night before. Kurt and I visited Cody and he stood up when he saw us but immediately laid back down. Definitely not the Cody that we knew. Poor baby felt so sick. When she called Wednesday night with the labs, there was good news and bad news. The liver actually looked stable, if not a little bit better. We were surprised by this. We were also surprised because his kidney level jumped to 4.3. This was really bad. He was now showing signs of multi-organ disfunction. This was also the first time that leptospirosis was brought up. The vet didn’t really think it was lepto because Cody had been vaccinated against it but since his liver was having problems and now his kidneys, she said lepto was possible. She recommended that we put a catheter in so that they would know exactly how much urine his kidneys were making (this also helps protect everyone from urine in his dog run). She also recommended that we transfer him to the internal medicine department of the hospital in the morning.

Thursday - he was transferred to internal medicine (which basically means that a more specialized team took over his care. He was still in the same dog run). That vet, Dr. Smith, called that morning and shared that she was really concerned about him. She wanted to rerun is blood work that morning instead of waiting until that night. I agreed. (They have to get your approval to do anything since everything is so expensive). When the numbers came back, his liver looked even better but the kidneys were even worse, now at 7. At this point she said he was in liver failure and acute kidney failure. It didn’t look good at all for him. They suspected lepto even more now that his kidneys were looking so bad. Kurt and I went to visit him that morning. They now required us to wear gloves to touch him because lepto is potentially transmittable to humans (although you would have to ingest his urine to get it). He stood up when he saw us and remained standing for a little while. We finally told him to lay down but he was definitely more alert and energetic, by which I mean he wasn’t just laying there. He wagged his tail, he responded by lifting his head when we talked to him. He just seemed a little bit better even though the labs looked worse. The vet was still very, VERY guarded about his prognosis. She was giving him a 10-20% chance of pulling through so we knew it wasn’t likely he was going to survive. We took the kids to visit him that afternoon to say their goodbyes (T was left with a babysitter). Talk about heart wrenching. The kids just sobbed. He also looked a lot worse. He didn’t even stand when he saw us. I think he may have wagged his tail but he definitely didn’t feel good. Also, they now not only required us to wear gloves but also to stand in a bleach bucket if we walked into his run. They put a blanket down for us to sit on and that is where the kids stayed. They had lepto warnings and a lepto laundry basket in his run. Kurt and I met with the vet while the kids waited in the waiting room. She said she wanted to recheck only his kidney level that night just to see what was happening. We agreed to it. If the number went up, we would be out of options and need to put him down that night. If it was the same or went down, we should give him more time and see what happened. 10-20% of the dogs make it so we had to give him that chance. Maybe he would be in that set of dogs that make the 10-20% possible. She said there was still a chance for the antibiotics to kick in and turn him around. We had hope but we were fully prepared to go back to the hospital that evening and put him to sleep. When she called that night, I could tell by her voice that she had good news - his number dropped to 4.3! She said we should give him until the morning and recheck it again. We went to bed so hopeful. We understood the chances but, man, we hoped.

Friday - they were scheduled to pull the lab work at 7 am. We were on pins and needles waiting for the call. I was in the middle of grocery shopping when it finally came. His kidneys had completely stopped working. He was making very, very little urine and his body was swelling due to the fluids going in but nothing coming out. It was time. Kurt met me at the vet and we said goodbye to Cody.

We are devastated. I mean, we will be okay and get through this, but we are pretty sad around here. We just can’t believe he is gone. One day he was playing and happy and then 5 days later, gone. The kids are doing okay. They all cried themselves to sleep last night but I think that was to be expected. We just hug which ever one is falling apart at that time and tell them it is okay to cry and be sad but it is okay to be happy too. 

They think he contracted leptospirosis somehow. It is a disease that is transmitted by wild life through urine so probably a squirrel or rodent or something peed in our yard in a puddle and Cody, being the water loving dog that he was, probably drank it. He was vaccinated against it but it is kind of like the flu. They can vaccinate against some variations of it but not all and he must have been exposed to a variation that he wasn’t protected against. We did everything right. It was just a fluke thing. A devastatingly, fluke thing. 

Like I said before, it is transmittable to humans, if they ingest his urine. It is very rare for a human to get it so we should all be safe but we had a houseful of people on 2 different days. I have had to notify everyone that was here about the risk. My main concern is that a kid dropped food in the grass and then picked it up and ate it. That is the only way I can imagine someone ingesting his urine. T drops food all the time and then eats it. Totally freaks me out but all we can do is wait and see. Can you imagine how I would feel if a little kid were to get sick?

Oh, and also we were doggie sitting for friends of ours from the Tuesday before Thanksgiving to that Sunday. I am so worried about their dog. Can you imagine how horrible I will feel if their dog gets sick too? I have told them to watch their dog like a hawk and let their vet know about the situation.

I can’t even think about it. I can’t even think about someone getting sick from this.

They don’t know for sure if he even had lepto. They are guessing but it is hard to test for. You have to take their blood one week after symptoms start, which was yesterday, so they drew his blood before he passed. Then usually they retest the blood 2 weeks after that and between the 2 tests they can tell if it was lepto. We will not have the 2nd test to compare with and reading just the one test can be tricky because it will show positive for lepto because he had the vaccine. We will probably never know for sure but from their experience, that is what they think it was.

So if you are still reading all this, and if you have a dog, and even if you have vaccinated your dog, DON’T let them drink any water in the backyard! Who knows what is in there. We thought our yard was safe. We thought we had protected him. We thought we would still have our Cody right now, but we don’t. And we are so sad.

If you read all of this, you are a trooper. Thanks for hanging through all that with me. Hopefully now I will be able to sleep better. Hopefully all the “what ifs” will settle down. Hopefully now I will have some peace.