Lunamoth

An evil, evil breakfast

Well, it’s been a riotous couple of days….  On Wednesday night, Frank had another attack of abdominal pain and fever (a couple of weeks ago, we’d attributed it to the flu).  Thursday morning I took him to his doctor, who said “run, don’t walk” to the hospital.  So, off to the emergency ward we went.  It was so packed in there, it was difficult to find a chair (and they have a biiiig waiting room with lots of chairs).  Anyway, a letter from his doctor apparently greased the wheels, and after about four hours he went into observation and was looked at by a variety of medical personnel.  They started him on a saline drip and gave him some tylenol.  Eventually, he went for a CAT scan.  Turned out to be pancreatitis, which can be pretty nasty.  There are three common reasons for pancreatitis — excessive alcohol use (he doesn’t drink), gall stones (he didn’t have those), and high cholesterol (he had that).  He was admitted to the ICU (about eight or nine hours after we’d first arrived).

It was kind of hard to see him in pain, and so weak and uncomfortable from the fever, but it was good to know, finally, what was really going on.  We were informed that his blood cholesterol (or lipids, or something — it was a bit too much for me to take in all at one time, so I don’t remember exactly) was 3,000 — the normal level is *3*.  Well.  Talk about discouraging!  And frightening!  I had to leave him there in the ICU at 9:00pm, all full of IVs and looking pretty miserable.  I didn’t have a good night’s sleep, and reading up on pancreatitis wasn’t that reassuring, either, since his case was quite bad….

This morning I went back to the hospital, and he looked much better, although still very weak and in some pain.  A doctor came in and informed us that the cholesterol level was a mistake — his level is actually 30, not 3,000.  Ok.  That sounds much more in the realm of “we can deal with this”.  Still high, certainly, but not astronomically so.

So…. Today he’s full of more IV lines than ever, and they did an arterial tap by his collarbone so they can continue taking blood for regular testing — any large blood vessels in his arms and hands had retreated in protest over the repeated jabbing, and who can blame them?  Anyway, the news is quite hopeful.  It doesn’t look like surgery will be required, and given a few more days in the ICU for observation (and testing), he’ll be able to transfer to a regular ward on Sunday or Monday.  He’ll likely also be able to start eating again then (if you can call a liquid diet eating).

And, speaking of eating, he’ll be going on a cholesterol-lowering regime, which will rule out the type of food in the photo above.  Not so bad.  He can still eat sushi. 

I’m sitting here at my desk with the window open to the amazingly raucous sounds of the frogs out there (I’d complain to the neighbours if their stereo were making that much noise!), and I’m missing having him here with me.  But he’s getting excellent care, and everyone’s optimistic about the prognosis, and he’ll be back home soon.  I don’t like seeing him so weak and tired and uncomfortable (and so attached to beeping and bonging machines), but I am so relieved….