Working out the painful little detail.

Hello all, Hope your Thanksgiving was a good one. We had a full house with all three kids, significant others, and an extended family member. Love it!
Still pretty quiet here. Glenn's abdominal scan didn't answer the mystery about the blood in his drainage bag every day. One day there was a lot more than normal so we took it to the nurse at the clinic so she could see how much it was. Since then it has been what it normally has been. Tomorrow Glenn will have a simple procedure done at the hospital to move the tip of the catheter that is in the bottom of his abdomen that drains the fluid during his dialysis. With his initial drain each night it has been painful so hopefully repositioning it will alleviate the discomfort for him. We are also curious to see if it has any effect on the blood in the drainage. He some how acquired a "black eye" We were at breakfast Saturday with the kids, and Joey asked him what was wrong with his eye: it looked like there was a broken blood vessel on the inside corner of his eyelid, (but not the eye itself). Throughout the day it continued to spread across the eyelid like eyeliner would  look. This morning it was all the way across the eyelid and starting to move down a little below that. It doesn't hurt or itch, is not swollen. He doesn't even know it's there unless he looks in a mirror. We have NO CLUE how it got there. We haven't done anything about it because it doesn't bother him in any way and it isn't on the eyeball itself. We can have it looked at tomorrow when he is at the hospital.
This will be a week of medical appointments: he has the procedure tomorrow, nephrologist appt. Tuesday, and oncologist appt  Wednesday. Hopefully he will not have any problems arise from any of those. I'll report to you after all that takes place.

Closing in on Thanksgiving 2012

Hello everyone! We've had a quiet week, as you probably figured out by the silence on the blog. That hospital loaded Glenn up so well with blood and platelets that he has felt pretty good since then. He's been able to go to church and  wherever he wants to go. Not much else to report. He does have a scan scheduled for Monday to try to identify the source of the blood in the drainage bag every day when it is emptied. Of course, I will fill you in when we find out. Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving. I am looking forward to having all the kids here plus a couple other guests. It's been a long time since we've had a good gathering for Thanksgiving. Family for holidays makes me happy. :-)

4th and final update

Glenn was discharged this afternoon. His red blood count is staying stable, his platelets aren't, so we will follow up with the Dr. in G'ville ASAP. We already voted last week so we got that done. Thanks again for all your prayers and encouragement.  :-)

# 3 update

Glenn has had no more bleeding, and the blood levels are staying steady. And if everything stays that way he may be discharged tomorrow. He feels fine and is just hoping everything stays stable.

update # 2

Glenn is looking pinker today. He got a seventh unit of blood in the wee hours, plus a huge amount of platelets. The surgeon  ordered that in hopes that it would make the blood thicken up and stop bleeding. Today he still had some bleeding, but not as much. Still not slowed down enough to say it has stopped. At this point he isn't looking at surgery, we are going to continue to wait and see how it goes, or doesn't go, as the case may be.  ;-) The murse, (male nurse) had trouble getting blood out of Glenn's port to type for the unit of blood, and after a couple tries, he finally had to do a stick. All that, and getting the platelets, took all night, so we were up much of the night. So as you can imagine we are hoping for a better night of sleep tonight. Plus we get that extra hour, (thank you, God).
We have had several visitors this weekend which were so encouraging. Also got some calls from people checking on Glenn, (one at 6:30AM from a friend whose name will go unmentioned, but her name begins with P and ends with atti.) We feel so loved around the clock!  Glenn won't be going home tomorrow. We'll try for Monday.   tbc

update

Glenn had a colonoscopy and endoscopy today and the source of the bleeding is from diverticulosis, but the Dr didn't see a specific active bleeding sight at the time. He is still bleeding so he is having a scan of his abdomen right now to see if a specific source can be seen. He got another unit of blood today and a unit of platelets. We got the report of  last weeks bone marrow biopsy and the marrow is making blood cells and platelets the way it is supposed to, and the light chains are stable, not increasing any more. So we know that the low blood counts aren't a bone marrow issue. He is still feeling ok. We know we'll be here at least another day, and probably longer because they will want him to not bleed for at least 24 hours before they let him go....... tbc

Breaking News

I need to catch you all up on what's been going on this week before I forget some of the details as they unfold. Glenn had his usual weekly appointment at the renal clinic Wed. for his shot that he gets to keep his blood count up. He was extremely tired that morning. When we got there we told the nurse and she took a blood sample to test it. We wouldn't know the results right away so they sent us home and they would call us with the results. They did call a little while after we got home and told us that his blood count was dangerously low and to get to the hospital right away. Actually they told us to call 911 and  we did, but when they came and assessed him, his vital signs were good and he refused an IV and they said they could have the rescue come but it would just basically be a ride to the hospital. So, against orders of the nurse at the clinic, we decided that I would drive him to the ER. We got right in because they had called ahead to let them know he was coming. After all the check in stuff, and recheck of his blood, they told us he would be admitted and that he would get two units of blood as soon as they could get it. All this time, he was feeling pretty good, but you know how you start to feel better when you go to the Dr.s office. He really was pretty weak. He was admitted , that was yesterday. He got the two units of blood. And the goal now is to find out why he is losing blood. Remember, he just got two units a week ago. And his blood count was lower this week than it was last week. He also got another unit today. The plan is to do a colonoscopy and endoscopy. He has been having some rectal bleeding for a couple weeks, though not a huge amount. Just consistently and he had an appointment with the GI Dr. for the afternoon after his visit to the nephro. clinic. Needless to say, we didn't make that appointment. But he did get a visit from that (GI) group today and tomorrow he will have those tests. I will keep you informed as I know something new. We are doing ok with all this, just taking it a day at a time.