The flu that wasn't the flu

Feel free to forward this blog url to friends and family. I'll be adding posts during the day as I learn what is going on.

How we got here:

Mary's flu that started last Sunday in Denver while visiting Chris, Casey, Danny and Sarah didn't really go away all week. She never did have a fever. And, other than Monday morning, she kept everything she ate down. Mary did have to eat slowly when she did eat, but she had no difficulty with food intake--other than a lack of appetite because of the pain and discomfort.

Most telling, no one she was in contact with came down with the flu including her Habitat volunteers and family members.

Saturday (yesterday) morning after her shower, she asked me if her skin had a yellow shading to it. I had to agree. So then we started web searching for all her symptoms. That led to calling our doc's office which lead to the emergency room.

This is one of the links we found that appears to be accurate for our girl.
Http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000263.htm

Yesterday they took a battery of blood tests and an ultrasound. The blood tests showed her potassium was low, her liver enzymes were elevated and some other "out of normal"range for her but those were the two biggies. The ultrasound showed her bile ducts were constricted, perhaps blocked, but no indication of the cause. The ER decision was to admit her for follow on diagnosis.

California has a law about nurse to patient ratio. Turns out Mary's designated room was on a floor that was short handed on Saturday night so we took the trip up to the floor only to immediately return to the ER. The plan was to bring in hospital beds for the five patients stuck in ER until the legal requirement was met. Actually, this wasn't bad because she had a really great nurse for her overnight stay. He has been in nursing for 20 years, half in ICU and the other half in ER. A calm and knowledgeable guy with great bedside manner.

They have Mary on a pain killer that is causing nausea so they have her on two anti-nausea meds. Actually, this seems to work. When she got her 2nd injection (she is on an IV), she drifted off to dreamland and was resting comfortably when I left at 1AM. It's 7:45AM as I finish this and they told me she'd like be set up to move after 8AM so I'll be over there in a short while.

I'll be updating during the day. Good Samaritan Hospital does have guest wifi so its one of the things I do to keep busy and distracted.

Pat