There hasn't been a lot of running this week. It's hard to run when the built in child care is laid up in the hospital. But, with the lack of running, I have been awake at night to think. No matter what is happening in life, there is so much to be thankful for.
Russ had a serious internal bleed. It was a big deal. He left the hospital today with no restrictions.
Thank you to the blood donors who selflessly gave the two units of blood that were pumped into Russ. I am pretty sure that saved him.
Thank you to the ER staff who realized that there was something wrong, even if they couldn't quite pinpoint what it was. They knew something wasn't quite right and decided to keep him overnight to check.
Thank you to the ICU staff (in both units) for their attention and care. There are really, really sick people in ICU and the staff treated Russ with just as much care and concern as they did for those people. They realized that the boys needed to see their daddy just as much as daddy needed to see the boys and they helped make that happen. They explained everything and answered all of our questions. We were blessed with fantastic care every day he was in the hospital.
This has to be the thing that I am most thankful for our friends. I called Peggy in a panic and she was willing to drop everything to take care of my boys, having no idea how long we would be gone. She checked in multiple times a day to see how he was doing and if I needed anything. Our Cub Scout families filled our freezer with meals and checked in every day, willing to take care of anything we needed - Jeanna even offered to take care of our chickens. We had a visit from a Lakeview parent, just to check on us. My aunt came to join me for lunch. My dad stopped by on this way to work. We had countless offers to help with the boys or to come sit at the hospital. We had so many notes, messages, and texts checking on him. When I needed to back out of a PTA function, the ladies picked right up with no questions asked. I was overwhelmed by the love and support. We have appreciated all of the thoughts, prayers, and offers of help.
Thanks to my mom and dad for keeping the boys' week as normal as possible. That consistency kept our household sane.
It's been a long week, but now Russ is home and healing and we are able to get back to normal. Running shenanigans start back this weekend!
What a week! In the grand scheme of life, it wasn't THAT bad. I mean, everyone is still alive. But, I'll get to that....
Let's rewind to Sunday, Valentine's Day. It started like any ordinary day. We took the boys to play Laser Tag. Russ and I played too. It was super fun. We had lunch at Steak and Shake and were well on our way to go look at flooring for the house updates. All of a sudden, Russ got a little nervous and mentioned that the Check Emission System light came on and the car had lost power. It started stuttering. We nursed it to the dealer and my dad picked us all up. We spent a quiet evening in - dinner with the boys and snuggles with everyone on the couch.
Now it's Monday - President's Day. The car dealership calls to say that it is only a sensor and it will be a quick and relatively inexpensive fix.
It was a Thud-Klunk-Thud kind of fix instead of something worse.
Russ and the boys started working on hooks for the mudroom while I was doing some cleaning. All of a sudden, Russ started to say that he was really hot and wasn't feeling so well. He went into the bedroom to take off some of his layers and I found him laying on the floor. Now, I am not going to lie. The man flu is strong with this one. He tends to overreact to illness a bit. I don't give him a lot of sympathy most of the time.
He was lying on the bathroom floor, sweating and complaining about how he had no energy. I tried to get him from the bathroom floor to the bed. As soon as he stood up, he crumpled back down. Eventually, he crawled to the bed, rested a minute on the floor, and then climbed into bed. He slept for about 2 hours. I would go in and check on him and he seemed to be feeling a little bit better. We both thought he had just been a little too hot.
I was supposed to have a hair appointment - my Valentine's gift from Russ. I cancelled it because he wasn't in a place where he could take care of the kids. We were supposed to have Scouts. I cancelled it because he wasn't in a place where we needed to be out and about around people.
So, with all of our events off the calendar the kids playing nicely, and my husband in the bed, I sat down on the couch to have a moment of peace.
All of a sudden, I heard my name. I ran into the bathroom to find him sprawled out on the bathroom floor, with blood running down his head. He had passed out and hit his head. He was breathing very fast and very shallow. He was scared to death and asked me to call an ambulance. I called 911 and put the littlest one on ambulance watch. I called my friend to take the boys, but my mom called in the middle of that, so she came to sit with the boys at our house. My dad took me to the hospital behind the ambulance.
Once we got settled in the ER, it was about 3:30. The staff was pushing bags of saline because they also thought it was just dehydration and took some blood. The PA and her student stitched up his head with the big doctor came in. She started asking questions and ordered a CT scan to check for a blood clot. The CT came back and showed some fluid around Russ's heart, so the staff admitted him to the Observation unit to keep an eye on him and ordered an echo cardiogram for the next morning. I went home to get the boys settled for the evening and out the door the next morning.
Right around 7am the next morning (we are now on Tuesday), Russ called to tell me that he would be in a different room when I got there because they were moving him to ICU. WHAT?? (He is REALLY, REALLY bad a breaking bad news. I mean, he is AWFUL!)
He had started passing blood in his stools overnight and the doctors were concerned about an internal bleed. I raced to the hospital and got there in time to see the first of two units of blood start transfusing and to transfer to the ICU with him. He went to ICU4, which is the highest level ICU at the hospital. Needless to say, I was a lot confused and even more concerned. He was just supposed to be watched over night and now he was in ICU.
The wonderful nurses got him settled and the echo cardiogram team came to his bed to do the test. I got to stick around and watch. It was an ultrasound of the heart. Then the GI team ordered an endoscopy. That test was pretty quick, but they made me leave. The doctor came out to talk to me and said that there was a ton of blood in the stomach but he could not find the source of the bleeding. He said that he was pretty sure there was no ulcer, but Russ had a Dieulafoy's lesion, which is a very rare bleed that is hard to find. He mentioned that Russ has lost HALF of his blood volume and they had pumped over a liter of blood from his stomach. All in all, he got 2 units of blood.
Wow! He lost half of his blood. He has some rare bleeding, and he is in the ICU at a civilian hospital because he is too unstable to transfer. The hits just keep on coming.
The doctor decides to keep him another night and repeat the endoscopy the next morning.
Now it is Wednesday. I wake up to a text that he has moved rooms again. Now he is on the second floor ICU, which is more of a step down unit. I get to the hospital and we sit and wait. The Cardio doctor comes in a clears him from his care. The fluid around the heart is insignificant. He is not concerned and doesn't need to monitor it anymore. In the meantime, Russ gets a call from a doctor at Portsmouth Naval Hospital. The Navy has found him. My heart drops as I think he is going to be transferred, but the doctor thinks he should just stay where he is.
I leave for lunch when Russ is leaving for his endoscopy. When I come back up, he is not back yet. I start to panic. The procedure on Tuesday was about 15 minutes long. He has now been gone an hour. After 2 hours, I started to get antsy and less easy to deal with. I wanted some answers and nobody was willing to give them to me. He finally comes back and the answer is less dire than we thought.
It was "just" an ulcer. With the blood cleared, the doctor could see where it had bled and was able to fix it. The new plan is to let him try to eat on Thursday and head home on Friday.
Again, nothing is easy. That doctor went off duty and a new, more conservative doctor came in on Thursday. He pushed the timeline back a day...or so we thought. All of a sudden, at about noon, a nurse comes in with a tray of food. I have never seen him look so happy.
The nurse practitioner for the GI team came in. She expressed concern about his hemoglobin numbers. They are watching to see if that number goes up. If it doesn't, he will need another unit.
He's on the mend. We are still hopeful that he is going home tomorrow. We are so thankful for the staff at Chesapeake Regional Medical Center for taking such good care of him! They even let the boys sneak in for a minute to see him. This was important for all of them.
It's been a week, but everyone is still alive, and I am thankful for that.
