Saturday Update For Ben

Today, Ben was much more alert than he was yesterday. His color was so much better too. His fever was gone and when I left the hospital, his temperature was 98.3° and his B/P was 113/70. They are trying to wean him off the ventilator again. They had it set at 30% so he was doing 70% of his own breathing and his respiration was good. His pulse was around 78, his oxygen saturation was at 100. He is still considered "infectious" so we still had to gown up, wear glove and mask when we went in to his room. He is still a little bloated. His diarrhea has stopped, the sore on his bottom is almost healed. One of the best things is that his stomach is now working. They are hearing normal stomach sounds again. They are still "beefing" up his blood by giving him Vitamin K and Plasma and giving him red blood cells. They want to do that Paracentesis procedure on him tomorrow to find out what exactly is in his stomach. They are still giving him the anti-biotics as all of his cultures are still coming back negative and the still think the infection the gave him the fever was C.Diff. Ben was squeezing my hand a lot while I was there. He was a little confused when he saw me in the mask and gown because I don't think he recognized me at first. I think he thought I was a nurse, but then I think when he heard my voice, he was ok. He's moving his arms around a lot and kicking his legs now and then. They are hoping that after they do the Paracentesis that they will be able to start feeding him through his NG tube so he can start getting some nourishment. The ICU doctor said that he felt Ben's kidneys were about 10% better today than they were yesterday. Hopefully, they were recover like they did before. His nurse today was Janice. She was really sweet. She has been a nurse for 27 years and loves her job. She was very religious and kept telling me that God was filling the room with love for Ben and watching over him. She told me that every day before she comes to work, she prays for the Lord to give her the tools and knowledge she will need to take care of her patients and she says every day the Lord comes through for her. When I got there this morning Ben's temperature was 101° and she told me she would have it down to normal by the time I left to come home and she did just that! She told me to bring a portable DVD player with some of Ben's favorite movies or shows (like Andy Griffith) for him to watch because she says that it will remind him of being home and that will give him encouragement to get well. I priced some DVD players today and they are NOT cheap and the screens are so tiny, so I thought maybe I could take my smaller laptop and play them for him on that. They don't have WiFi there but I don't need WiFi for just using the DVD slot on the laptop. If they had TV Land on their televisions there, he'd be perfectly happy, but their service does not carry that channel. Anyway, I feel a little better about him this evening than I did yesterday evening.