Wednesday Update For Ben

Well today was a little scary. I arrived at the hospital around 9:30 AM. I walk into Ben's room and there are nurses all over him. I panic. They tell me his temperature has spiked to 101.6° so they are trying to take specimens to run cultures to figure out why his temp has gone up. They have a lot of student nurses there working with him. Their training instructor took me aside because I was crying and she was calming me down. She told me that his other vital signs were good and that they would get his temperature down and find out what the problem was. His Internist was out in the hallway and she tried to calm me down too. She is so nice, but she won't be with him now again for awhile because they rotate they floor doctors. Tomorrow will be Dr. Monroe. They were having trouble getting blood from his IV to use for a culture, so they had to have some lab techs come up and draw it from his arm somehow. The took his spittle and his urine to culture too. They told me the sore on his bottom was a little better today. They have been putting antibiotics on it. His temperature did go down to 100°. Even though I don't have minutes on my cell phone, I called my friend Lynn who lives just a few miles from the hospital and she rushed right over to be with me. She took me out of his room and calmed me down quite a bit. I also called Ben's sister who came into town last night and his brother and his sister came right over to the hospital. His brother got there a little later. Ben was a little out of it when I first got there, but later, once his sister was there, he seemed to be focusing on us a little better and trying to communicate. He has lost his voice because they still have the NG tube through his nose and down his throat and they cannot give him water. They have been swabbing his mouth, but he is so dry. The Internist said she heard very faint stomach sounds, so it's still not working yet and they cannot give him food until it does. They said if his stomach is not working, the food could back up into his lungs and stop his heart. They are giving him nothing but sugar into his veins to keep him "fed". Because of this, they have to track his blood sugar constantly and give him insulin. They are giving him saline because his was getting dehydrated. His hand were a little swollen again today. They looked better yesterday. I hate leaving him there like that, but I have found that I become more stressed when I'm there than when I'm at home. I feel so guilty about that, but I'm so afraid that I'm going to get sick again and then we'd really be in a mess. I know my B/P is up and my pulse is up. I'm taking my B/P meds, but the stress just "overrides" them I guess. I've been trying to eat good and I did get about 7 1/2 hours of sleep last night. I've been trying to exercise. Walked last evening for 20 minutes and did 20 minutes of aerobics with Exercise TV this morning. When I explain to Ben why I cannot stay longer with him, he nods that it's ok. He knows how bad that traffic is coming up here in the evening and he knows I'm not a good freeway driver or a good night driver. Tomorrow my friend Sandi who lives just a short distance away is going to pick me up around 9:00 AM and drive me down to the hospital and sit with me there.