Thursday Update For Ben

Ben's face looked a little red when Marla and I walked into his room today and he looked like he was not feeling that well. His vitals were good and they did 1 1/2 hours of breathing trials with him this morning before he could not do it any longer. He opened his eyes and I asked him if he felt ok and he shook his head no, so I asked for the nurse to come in. He felt a little warm to me, but they checked his temperature and it was 99° at that time. Later when they took it it was 98.6° so that was perfect. Later I asked him if he was feeling ok and this time he nodded yes. They came in to reposition him and give him his medications and they were telling me what a good patient he is. I asked him if I should believe them and he shook his head no and made a funny face. Dr. Shapiro from infectious diseases came in and said he thought Ben may have a urinary infection from the catheter which later Dr. Shin did confirm and they are now giving him antibiotics for that and this is the reason they now think he was getting the low-grade fevers as everything else came back negative. Marla and I went to have our lunch and the nurse came to get me as a Dr. Mehlman from GI had come into Ben's room and they needed me to come back to sign a consent form to give him that paracentesis that they had wanted to give him weeks ago and could not at that time. They did that today and took 3 liter of fluid out of his stomach and said there is still more there, but did not want to make his blood pressure drop from the procedure and said they may do it again at a later time to remove more fluids. It was successful and his stomach did look less distended after they did the procedure and it is so much softer now than it was. Dr. Shin came in later and spoke with me. The CAT Scan they did last night showed Ben had a lot of water in his stomach which is called Ascitis and there is NO BLOCKAGE, NO OBSTRUCTION AND NO ABCESS which all very good. They do not feel that any surgery will be required. They may switch back to tube feeding tomorrow per Dr. Shin. Dr. Shin is calling in a lung doctor to have him check Ben out and see if they can start being more aggressive with the lung exercises and trying to wean him off of the ventilator so when he goes to the trach care unit that would be one less thing they would have to do. He said they may even be able to remove the trach at the hospital IF they could get him weaned off of the ventilator, but I kind of doubt he will be at the hospital that long. They are now going to get more aggressive with trying to get his infection cleared up and get more nourishment into him to make him stronger so he can go to the Sub-Acute unit. Marla and I visited the other Sub-Acute unit today and even though it is farther from our home, I would prefer he go to it because they specialize ONLY in Sub-Acute procedures and getting the patient off of vents and trachs along with rehab therapy to get them ready to go home. The unit has a very overall rating for their services. Please continue your prayers for Ben.