223rd Post - Patricia Update for May 13

It occurs to me that many of you don't know what I have been going through lately, with the late nights, and the hospital visits, and so on. Enough time has passed that I now feel comfortable discussing it, and Patricia has given me her permission to do so.

Patricia had been having long coughing jags for a long time. She changed physicians, and the new one order blood work and an x-ray. They found something on her lungs. More appointments, this time with specialists, who concluded they would monitor the situation, as it seemed to have disappeared.

A few months ago, a follow up x-ray, where the shadow had re-appeared. This time, they would go through with a biopsy on her lung, which would reveal whether it was cancerous, or benign.

On April 17th, she had the biopsy surgery. She was mighty sick after that, but recovered sufficiently to go home on April 22. However, here at home she became dehydrated and physically ill, being so sick she couldn't even keep down her anti-nausea pills (yes, there is a tinge of irony there!). We called 911 and she was taken back to hospital by ambulance.

Michael Moore holds the Canadian medical system up as a model for others to follow. There are plenty of problems with it, however, and we ran into several that evening. I'll leave it at that, other than to say she was re-admitted to the thoracic department in the early hours of April 25th, where she has remained ever since.

At one point, April 29th, she was so ill that she had to be placed into an intermediate care facility, where she had 24x7 support, as her fever, abdominal pain, pneumonia, etc. had reached a point where (they told us later) she could go toxic and maybe even die.

Around this time, the results of the biopsy finally came back. In addition to the severe infection she has been fighting since the biopsy surgery, she also has an inflammation caused by God knows what. To fight the infection, they need plenty of antibiotics. To fight the inflammation, they need steroids.

In just the last few days, they began to control the fever, and then laryngitis set in, which she is now getting over. The antibiotics are helping her a lot. Monday, she was feeling well enough to walk with me to the Tim Hortons donut shop in the hospital. Today, Tuesday, she had a relapse and I took her there in a wheelchair.

It is looking as if she will be released on Friday. However, the regime of antibiotics and then steroids will keep her occupied for probably another month, or maybe even longer. She will be off work for probably that long anyway.

So, the long visits into the evening aren't quite over yet!

Bevboy