up and down.

It's hard to take a day off from being at the hospital.
I stayed home on Tuesday & when I got back on Wednesday it was like there was a box of misshapen puzzle pieces & I was left to figure out how they all fit together.

Remember how I said some days are good & some days are bad?

The first thing I noticed when I came into his room was that he was shaking & his eyes were huge - bulging. He said there was something wrong, he felt weird & that he couldn't stop shaking.
The second thing I noticed was that the TPN (nutrition bag he was on before, but then taken off of) was hanging back up on his IV pole.
So his nurse comes in & tells me he's hypothermic & has been running a really low temperature of 33. He was being sent for a CT scan of his gut to check for infection (sometimes, if the stomach lining is very inflamed, bacteria from inside can get out into the blood stream) & to also check on the progress, if any, of his stomach lining rebuilding. They had also taken lots of blood cultures and a mouth swab to check for infection there.

See how quickly things can change?

The next day, we got the results of the CT Scan - looks like things are actually more inflamed than they were the last time they did a scan. (my heart sank about 3 levels here). But what about how well his diarrhea seems to be clearing up? Turns out that sometimes, when the stomach is so inflamed, it can 'yadda yadda yadda.....' I kind of zoned out here but watched the Drs arms & hand motions to get the idea that the gut kind of seizes up stops producing anything at all.
He does have a bacterial blood infection, but it isn't the 'bad one' as the Dr put it, it's an infection from his hickman which he's had before. He's on about 3 different antibiotics for it.

For most of the day Gord was quiet - not saying much to me but at one point, was staring so deep into my eyes I tapped on his head & said "You're having a conversation with me in here." He nodded. I touched his lips & said "Try to make some of it come out of here." He couldn't.

They did an MRI of his brain to make sure nothing fishy was happening that could account for his un-responsive behavior. Everything was clear, so I have a feeling the lack of conversation is just a result of him being flat out exhausted.

I left the hospital at about 6 so I could go to a friend's birthday dinner. I thought I could handle it but it just felt so wrong. What I had just come from, what I spend my days doing - is so different, so starkly different than everyone else I was with. It was good to get out & see friends but again, like I mentioned in a previous post, all of this, all of these years of dealing with this sickness & now this post-transplant Hell have stolen so much from us... like the ability to just sit & drink a pint & talk & listen like a 'normal' person.

Gord slept through all of today. My Aunt & Uncle visited in the morning, but he was asleep. Then, Arlene, Graham & Felix cam, but he was asleep. Then I went with my dad....he was asleep. I stayed until about 9:30 & he barely stirred the whole time. He looked nice & relaxed & the nurse told me he hadn't had any Morphine today - this was all Gord induced rest. The best kind.