Friday Update For Ben

Ben was awake when I came in this morning, but not really very responsive. When I first came in, his blood pressure was 113/49, his heart rate was 93 and his breathing was 24. No fever today, temperature was 96°. I think it's a little low due to his low B/P. I thought his belly looked a little bigger today and to me it felt a little harder, but Nick (Ben's nurse) said that maybe it looked bigger to me due to all of the dressing on the incision plus the colostomy bag under Ben's gown. That could be because they did have a lot of dressing on the incision. Nick also said that they are constantly monitoring Ben's abdominal pressure and it has been staying within the range it should be. It looked like there was some blood in Ben's urine. I mentioned it to Nick and he said he's been noting that on the computer for the doctors. Ben didn't seem to be focusing today, he just kept staring off into space. He acted like he was trying to tell me something but I could not read his lips to know what it was. The are still giving him antibiotics. They were giving him a unit of blood just before I left and they are still trying to wean him off of the blood pressure meds that help raise his B/P. When I left at 12:30, they had just given him some more Ativan to calm him down some because he was a little agitated. I just hope it does not knock him out as much as it did the other day when he didn't wake up for over 24 hours. His vitals just before I left were B/P 113/58, H/R 93 and breathing 30.