Books on Health

  • Dr. Mom's Healthy Living
  • Transfiguration Diet
  • The School of Natural Healing

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

The Next Challenge

John was home for three days when the next challenge hit. It was Sunday, January 10th, 2010, he didn't feel like going to church and I agreed that he needed to rest.

He slept for the good part of the day. I got him up to get him something to eat at around 3 pm. He didn't eat much when he yelled "help". I went in and he said he felt weak. Not knowing what was going on, I got him his walker to help him back to his bedroom. He took a few steps and then he just buckled. I managed to get a chair before he fell all the way to the ground. I had him sit there for about a half hour. He had a hard time sitting up and he said he felt really tired, so I positioned the chair so he could lean against the wall. I took his blood pressure twice. The first time, it was really high. The second time it was near normal. I got him to the wheelchair and he clumsily got himself into the bed. I took his blood pressure again. It was really high. I took it again 20 minutes later, and again it was near normal. He rested for an hour. When I went to help out of the bed was when I realized what was really going on. His whole left side was weak and he actually fell to the floor trying to get him to the wheelchair. I thought "HE has had a stroke!" So my son helped him to the chair and I called the ambulance. He wanted something to eat. He was talking to me normally so I was glad of that. In the middle of the night he ended up having a 30-45 minute seizure. After that he slurred his speech and couldn't swallow well. And he had a headache that no pain meds could touch.

Wild and Crazy December

Wow! It's been a while since I last blogged! Life has been pretty crazy. John's health took a turn for the worse in December.

It started out with a couple of burns on his fingers the beginning of December. He touched a baked potato that was too hot. He had burns on his index and pinky fingers. The one on his pinky didn't blister. I put Tea Tree oil on both an a bandage on the index. His fingers were losing their function and he kept them curled under, like a fist, most of the time. Because of this, he rubbed the pinky finger enough to cause it to open up and get infected. So he was put on antibiotics and I dressed the pinky and putting Tea Tree oil on it. Apparently, that wasn't good enough, because in another two weeks, the finger started getting black on top. This was about a week before Christmas. His finger was starting to cause a lot of pain. I got him into a specialist which was on Dec 23rd. By that time John was in screaming pain. No pain meds were even touching it. The doctor put him on more antibiotics and scheduled him to be seen by the heart doctor for Jan. 4th. I knew then that John wasn't going to make it that long and even told the doctor that. He understood and told me to take him to the emergency room and have him admitted. I had tried that a few days before and they wouldn't do it. So on Christmas day, after all the festivities were done, I took him in. On Monday, December 28th, the doctor amputated his pinky finger. He also found much infection in the palm of his hand down into his wrist. He had to go back in on Wednesday and on Friday to rinse and clean out more infection, even into his thumb. The doctors realized that the fistula that he had in his right bicep was impeding the circulation to his hand, so they closed it off and put a chest catheter in so he could continue dialysis. That seemed to do it. His hand responded to it right away and was healing. He was discharged from the hospital on January 7th with an IV hook-up so he could continue IV antibiotics at home. I will add pictures soon.