Cathy's Blog for Monday, October 11

We are finally in a room!

We had an early start this morning at 3:00 AM when the clock went off, left home around 4:00 AM and arrived here at 7:00 AM Georgia time. We had time to kill so we sat in the waiting room and went to Radiology to register around 6:30 or 6:45 AM Georgia time.


We were told to go to regular admissions to sign-in which he did. After that he went back to radiology and a few minutes later the nurse came and got us so she could get him prepped for surgery. First she shaved his arm around his elbow; this was so the tape from the IV would not hurt so bad when they removed it. Ouch! Then she started the IV line, drew some blood to send to the lab, asked many questions about symptoms, medications, etc and then we wait for the radiology doctor to come in and talk about the procedure and see if we had any questions. We didn't have any as we have been through this before.

The nurse gave me a pager they would use to call me when they were finished inserting the cath and were ready for me to come back to recovery. Well, I went out to sit in the surgical waiting area and waited and waited. It is loud in surgical waiting and I was sitting close to a family that was loud and I had the beeper on my right side (which I can barely hear out of my right ear) and never heard it go off. At 10:00 I was getting kind-of worried, and about that time the nurse came looking for me. She said that they already had him on the 10th floor getting his first Plasma Exchange treatment. Well, I felt terrible! I knew Kerry would be wanting me there when he came back, and I wasn't. So, off I go to the 10th floor and the Nephralogist (kidney doctor) and his team of doctor/students were making rounds, so he introduced me to the doctors and explained why this procedure is done in the dialysis department. This is done in the dialysis department because they use similar procedures used in dialysis to purify the blood.

There are three connections to this vascular catheter that is inserted into the jugular vein. One connection goes only so far down, the second one goes about middle ways and the third connection goes down to around the top of the heart. One connection is for drawing out the blood one for return and the other is for IV access. Of course, this is all very routine to the medical personnel, and unfortunately to us now too. Well, they have a new machine that is faster than the older ones. The older ones take about 5 hours to complete the process, but the newer one only takes about 2 ½ to 3 hours. I went for lunch at 11:30 (12:30 Georgia time), and around 12:40 TN time they were beginning to unhook him. They let him get into a wheel chair and took the stretcher/bed away and there we sat for about 20 minutes. He was nauseated and had not had his Mestinon, so the nurse gave him the Mestinon and a shot for nausea while we were waiting for a room. He had a terrible headache to boot.

Room Concerns: The nurse had said earlier that they had a room for him on the 8th floor, but came back and said no they didn't. So we were having to wait for a room, which was okay since that was what we had to do that last time. Well, we were finally put into a semi-private room and were hoping to get a private room on Tuesday. I made a trip to the car to get what we needed for the night.

I went to get a bite to eat and to get Kerry a cup of coffee. Dr. Davis who works with Dr. Lee came in and was talking to Kerry and he left orders for pain medication for his headache. As of 7:45 PM, all of his medication had not been ordered or some of it has not been sent up from the pharmacy.

This has been an extremely bad day for Kerry. He has had a tremendous headache and a lot of nausea.

We hope that tomorrow is better.

It is now 10:00 PM TN time and we are tired and worn out, so I am ending this blog.