A LONG JOURNEY BACK PART 4

We were assigned a home health nurse which visited once a week to check on his tube and also his urostomy, check his vitals and change dressings if needed.

Since the nephrologist, Dr. Kesuda at Bay Area was unable to put the tube back in his kidney he again was transferred to Riverbend Hopsital in Eugene. At this point we are both getting tired of the constant re admissions to the hospital for the same thing. When he arrived they scheduled the replacement for the next morning. It was scheduled for 9am but it got pushed back to 4pm and this is without anything to eat since midnight the night before. After the insertion of the nephrology tube by the radiology doctor he was doing okay and so they sent him home in three days. This tube was attached to a bag that needed to be emptied periodically.

You can see here the two other scars from the other insertions of this nephrology tube.


He seemed to be doing okay but still had lots of pain in the left kidney. He had been home one week and on Friday evening  he started acting confused and so I took his temp and it was 102. Again he was weak and couldn't preform his daily schedule of medications or preparing for the day such as brushing his teeth or using eye drops as he normally does each and every day of his life. So once again I called the ambulance to come get him and take him to the ER. Tests were done again to find the cause of his temp. He had another infection in that kidney that doesn't empty and he also had pneumonia. They sent him once again to Riverbend Hopsital in Eugene 2 hours away from home.

They started him on antibiotics IV and breathing treatments. He was in the hospital for 5 days. His nephrologist Dr Sanghvi saw him as well as his oncologist Dr Sharman and I kept asking if he could be seen by his pulmonologist Dr Mahadavin since he had pneumonia and the hospitalist said that we had to go to his office to be seen by Dr Mahadavin because he wasn't on their team. This was just one of the things that concerned and angered me. He was sent home with oral antibiotics and was to make a follow up appt with the nephrologist in one week.

He had been home 4 days when he woke up one morning and his tube was out! It had not been taped correctly by the home health care nurse and it got caught on the bedding during the night and got pulled out. He had another fever 103.4 and was really confused and hallucinating. I was able to get him downstairs and into the car and off we went to the Bay Area Hospital ER. All the same tests were done. Xray, CatScan, blood work, urinalysis and blood cultures. He had pneumonia and a urine infection and his creatinine was very low, 3.7. His kidney was shutting down.

They transferred him once again to Riverbend Hospital and this time they placed the tube but didn't attach it to a bag. It was coming out his back but it had a clamp on it for access if needed.

This seemed to be a better way for the tube to be there if it had to. It wasn't going to get caught on anything and it was easier to change the dressing and keep it dry.