Finally Good News!

Meningitis has been ruled out. The infectious medicine doctor said the spinal tap fluid was crystal clear therefore there is no way. The caution tape came down! Neal was able to open his eyes for us. We had to continually tell him to do so, but eventually he did. There is still no diagnosis. They are going to decrease the breathes the ventilator is giving him and see how he responds. He is no longer on the sedative and the thought is the sedative may still be in his body since his kidney does not work. He is getting dialysis now, so we are hoping to see even more improvement by this afternoon. We will be anxiously waiting.

Rollercoaster Day

The day did not start out so well. The good news is Neal was given a blood pressure medicine and his blood pressure is now under control. Neal had a temperature earlier, but it was gone by the evening. They did blood cultures to determine if he has an infection. The bad news is he stopped responding when the nurses were pushing on his chest. The doctor believes something is still going on in his brain. Neal had an MRI this afternoon and the results were inconclusive, showing a sign of high blood pressure which we already knew. At our last visit, Neal had opened his eyes when the nurse irritated him, however there is still no focus. He is moving both sides of his body a little, but not much. He is still on the ventilator. The first concern is what is going on with his brain. Once that is figured out we will figure out the rest of the issues. We have all been through enough that we realize patience is important. Nothing happens overnight. A move of his hand or foot is a positive sign to us. We are trying to constantly talk to him and try to stimulate him. We even put the Tribe game on for him tonight.

The next assumption is meningitis, however she is not sure. I believe everyone is dumb founded and going down the list of possibilities. They have ordered an EEG, which I will have to look up. I will update tomorrow. We are currently doing our own investigative report on the internet.

24 hours later

Not much has changed. Neal is on the ventilator. It is giving him 14 breathes per minute. Later Saturday he was taking an extra breathe every minute. He is not responding to anything right now. The nurse claims he opened his eyes a couple of times, but I have yet to see it. They are having a hard time controlling his blood pressure and all they can think is that he is in pain, however there is no way for him to communicate that to us. We are hoping to get someone in neurology to look at him and try to figure out what is going on with his brain. His tongue is also very swollen. He looks like he has three lips and you cannot see his teeth. He bit it pretty hard and according to the doctors it is still attached, but is cut really bad. He is currently being restrained. Hopefully once he is awake the restraints will be removed if he can understand that he needs to be on the ventilator. He currently has a slight fever that they are keeping an eye on. The plan from here is to get the swelling down in his tongue and then put a trach in so that they can fix his tongue. His tongue will probably swell again, therefore they need to keep his breathing passage open. I will update again Sunday.

I bit my tongue and now I am on a ventilator?!?!

No this is not the title of the new tv drama.

Neal had a rough night Friday. We are not exactly sure what happened and he does not know either, but we are guessing he fell and bit his tongue. He has a pretty big bruise on his thigh and supposedly a bump on the back of his head. Unfortunately he was alone when this happened. By the time I got home, we had quite a mess of blood, a very swollen tongue and a very confused Neal. The ER treated him quickly as a trauma patient. The initial concern was his breathing passage. To stabilize this, he had to be put on a ventilator. They then ruled out a stroke or heart attack. We may never know what happened. Perhaps a seizure or just a bad fall. The next step is to figure out what to do about his tongue. Apparently he did quite a number on it. The doctors still have not provided us with any updates. He is in the SICU at OSU. Visitors are not currently allowed except family and O+ kidney donors (sorry I have to add some humor). He cannot talk and is restrained, therefore visitors just make him frustrated. I will keep you posted, but am assuming I must be patient as nothing happens too quickly. Thanks to Stacy and Chris for hanging around with me all night at the hospital and Greg the purple shirt guy who was very friendly! I guess Neal's return to work will be a short one.

Blood Test

Ryan and I had our blood tested and we are still a match. We had to have it tested again because I received a blood transfusion during my colon surgery. We will have to have our blood tested one more time before the surgery. The transplant is scheduled for Jan. 15th. Cross your fingers.

-Neal

back to work

Looks like I will be going back to work on the 3rd of October.

Check out the lazy dogs!