Sunday on Seven

Roy moved up to the seventh floor sometime during the night. He’s out of ICU and in his own room under the care of a hospitalist (and her residents and a med student). Tomorrow will bring visits from hepatology, infectious disease, pulmonary, and maybe oncology. The hospitalist warned it will be a busy day on Monday and while she knew what their schedule for rounds would be, she wasn’t sure when the specialist teams would be coming by.

The hospitalist crew explained what they felt the priorities were for Roy’s care (hepatology as primary, then ID and pulmonary). They expect him to have another paracentesis today/tomorrow while continuing to have a lot of lactulose. Infectious Disease adjusted his antibiotics for the UTI so he is no longer taking vancomycin but will have two others (ceftriaxone and fosfomycin). He’s still got low dose of oxygen, nutrition and medications by tube, and the leg squishing apparatus as well as the requisite number of wires monitoring all the things. They’re aggressively tackling things with lactulose and diuretics to get the toxins out of his system.

I started learning the new team’s names, explained that I will be here, and shared contact information with them for his Methodist providers. I requested that oncology also be consulted. He’s here, their oncology team has access to him, and they might have some suggestions on how to avoid the Emergency Department and/or hospitalization after every immunotherapy infusion. Essentially, we’re starting that gap-filling education process again as this new team gets to know him and me and vice versa. They took the contact information for his Methodist hepatologist and oncologist so I am hoping there will be some consulting.

Roy had eaten some vegan pancake, cottage cheese and peaches by the time I arrived. He’s still getting nutrition by tube as well, but he had some quinoa/fruit salad and a cup of watermelon at lunch and is feeding himself with a little help. His new nurses are attentive although each nurse is caring for more patients on the floor than in ICU. He had another tray waiting when I left; he’s mostly receiving vegan items with occasional dairy products on the tray. He’s on the oncology floor so there is a tiny chapel, a family waiting room for when people need to step out, and some space set up to provide recreation for cancer patients and families with foosball, a pool table, and so forth with the coffee bar, ice machine/water dispenser and a fridge for families to use. There is a pull-out bed if needed.

Today Roy had visits from my sister Leslie and brother-in-law Dan and friends Cheryl and Mike. One of the benefits of being in Fort Worth is that Roy is slightly closer to old college friends/roommates who live in and around the DFW metroplex that he hasn’t been able to see as frequently. Yesterday he had a visit from my sister Lisa and brother-in-law Derek and from friends Kevin and Angela, as well as his sister Clair. My siblings were kind enough to feed me and hang out a little bit at our hotel last night and again today before they had to head back south.

Reports from home indicate that the cats are getting lots of attention; we got some photos of them from Dinah this morning, and Kathy and Cathy played with them this afternoon and gave them their overdue flea meds. This afternoon, Roy and I tackled paying a few bills electronically, too, between the things that he needed to do with the nurses. His throat is sore today because he is breathing through his mouth a lot whenever he sleeps, so he was a bit more whispery all day. We got some non-petroleum-based lip moisturizer from the nurses for him; in case you don’t know, you don’t want to use anything that is petroleum-derived when someone is on oxygen. The nurses also changed out some bandages and removed some of the old ones.

One of the technology marvels here is a meal tray system that results in half the tray being warm for the hot foods and the other half staying cold for those items. Mike investigated and found that the cart has a rack that provides heat or cooling for the trays from a divider in the middle. These are not your standard cafeteria trays!

I have acquired laundry detergent to do some wash, but will have to get some actual quarters tomorrow. They were out at the desk. Luckily I planned ahead and still have clean clothes. I am going to eat my leftovers from going to Fred’s tonight and I stashed an apple from the breakfast room today for dessert. My room has a little fridge and a little microwave. Tomorrow we are going to be busy, and I want to be there to catch any “pre-rounds” visits, so I am setting myself an early bedtime with fingers crossed that I actually sleep.