Alan has been home now for three months. Feeling as good as a dialysis patient can. He has even been able to get back to what he loves and that is being a vendor at the gun shows.
A month ago he started coughing a lot which concerned me so we made an appointment with Dr Edwards, our primary doctor here. He did blood work and a chest X Ray and said his lungs were clear so he put him on cough medicine and said to follow up in two weeks.
A week went by and his cough was getting worse and he said he didn't feel good. He had dry heaves and was very short of breath and his chest hurt so I took him back to the doctor. This time the doctor listened to his lungs and said there was a little rattle in there and treated him for bronchitis. Four days later I decided that we needed to see the doctor again so I called to try to get him in right away but they were booked so they told me to take him to immediate care or we could come in the next day. This was not going to work since he has dialysis "the next day" so after serious thinking I decided to take him to dialysis and then when he was finished I could take him across the street to Immediate Care. He was getting so short of breath and so weak from constant very harsh and wet coughing. He coughed all through the night and couldn't sleep and it was really taking a toll on his body.
I picked him up from the dialysis center at 6pm and went directly to Immediate Care across the street. We got right in and they took his blood pressure which was really high and his O2 was only 78. They told me to take him to the ER just next door right away.
Amazingly we didn't have to wait the usual 4 to 8 hours to be seen since his O2 was low and he was having chest pain. That is the key word "Chest Pain". they don't fool around when you have chest pain. He had 6 nurses at his bedside hooking him up with leads to do an EKG, starting IV's and then the X Ray department came in to do a chest X Ray. Suddenly his heart started to beat so rapidly it really scared me and they had the paddles ready to shock if necessary. They gave him an injection of medication to stable the heart but it didn't work so they gave him more. Finally his heart rate started to slow down and his blood pressure stabilized too. Now we wait to see the results of the X Ray and the blood work.
1 comment:
My prayers are with you and your hubby, Patti. You both must be so weary of the constant medical crises and ins and outs of the various medical facilities. I marvel that you can keep up with your art and continue to create such beautiful pieces.
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