Hospitalization

October 25th - Monday - Rainy

After a long night 8:00 am finally arrived and I was able to call Dr. Nespola and reported to him the happenings for Lou of the weekend. He asked Lou to go to the hospital to be admitted for Sepsis. My husband, being who he is didn't want to do that; however, when Dr. Nespola called back, he stated he would like Lou to go to the lab at the hospital for lab work and an UA and C&S, and go to his office. After some coaxing Lou agreed to that.

We arrived at the hospital lab and found Amanda, being the efficient MA that she is had indeed called the order down and they were waiting for Lou, they processed him through quickly, drew his blood and did the UA and we walked to Dr. N's office, we were quickly put into a room, so Lou could lay down and await the results of the lab work. Dr. Nespola soon came in and looked at Lou and said "you are a very sick gentleman", which I know took Lou by surprise, as he kept thinking it was a reaction to the flu injection that he had on Friday. "not". Dr. N gave me the lab results and I quickly looked them over as he explained to Lou what was indeed happening. He indeed does have Sepsis, which to you that are not familiar with the term, is life threatening and a very serious condition. Many death certificates has Sepsis as the cause of death and Lou dealing with death certificates on a regular basis is aware of this. Sepsis is a toxic condition resulting from the spread of bacteria or the products of bacteria from an infection someplace in the body.

Lou was indeed admitted to the hospital and immediately started on an IV antibiotic, after blood cultures were taken. He is also being given IV potassium , when I left at 10:30, he had completed one bag and the second one was hung. He is on telemetry, where they are monitoring his heart, and that has shown sinus rhythm w/ p.n.c.'s and later on showed numeral p.v.c.'s. Sepsis can affect all organs of the body. It is believed this is stemming from an UTI and he is scheduled for a kidney and bladder ultrasound in the morning and if a problem is found there a Urologist will be called in.

He has been coughing and has had an elevated temp, therefore, a chest x-ray was done and that did not show any thing to be concerned about, ie, no pneumonia. His blood pressure on admission was very low and also his pulse; however, both of those are returning to normal with additional fluid.

Dr. Nespola was in twice this evening, and again late this evening, he sat down with Lou and I and told us he expected him to make a full recovery, although it was going to take some time and he needed to be patient and not expect over night results. He does plan to do additional studies tomorrow.

Lou is in good spirits and knows that God will see us through this "bump in the road".

A special thanks to all of family members and friends and our pastor that were there to do whatever was needed. Krista even went to our house and gave Estee her medication and played with her, she was what Lou was concerned about. Just a note to let you know how much she loves Lou, when I came home this evening, she met me on the deck and as I closed the gate to the deck, she sat down at the gate and cried, looked for Lou, came to me and went back on the deck. I finally went out and picked her up and gave her his undershirt that I had brought home with me to launder and you guess it, she is in her bed, with Lou's shirt. Not dumb animals, are they? I know there will be pets in heaven. If our pets love us this much, imagine how much God loves us.

I will try to keep every one updated on the Blog but I do intend to spend the majority of my time at the hospital with Lou. That is my second home.