The C Word – Rest and Recovery

I am grateful that I have been able to relax a bit now that George is settled in his room.  He spends a lot of time sleeping so I am able to rest, take a nap, get outside for a little bit.  After a whirlwind week at home trying to adapt to a new schedule and getting a cold, this relaxing time is just what I needed. 

As we slowly get information about what took place this week, we are learning how close George was to losing more function.

We found out that when he arrived on Thursday night that his pancreatic enzymes were around 30,000.  Thus the reason for multiple blood tests because they thought they were getting wrong readings.  Normal enzyme levels are supposed to be 200! Yesterday the nurse told us they were at about 5,200.  Today they are just below 2000 at 1988.  Still a bit to go but the numbers have come down drastically.  Pancreatitis can be deadly so we are grateful that we got treatment when we did.  Treatment has been lots of IV fluids and no food.

George is still having pain in the pancreas but the nurse says that the pain will likely go on for a bit even after the numbers are back to normal.

The other out-of-whack number was his potassium.  George usually is in the low range for this.  Normally at the hospital they would be infusing more potassium into his system.  Normal range is something like 3.9-5.0.  He came in at around 7.0, went down to 6.1 and then 4.8 and today is 4.6. 

We thought that all of this was caused by the TPN formulary.  The on-call doctor today said the pancreatitis was not caused by the TPN (but the high potassium could be).  George had pancreatitis two years ago with unknown cause.  It appears that this is another anomaly that we will never know what caused it.  However, once you have had pancreatitis once, the chances of recurrence is greater.  We will just have to keep an eye on this!

Today we were told that he can have a full liquid diet and he starts back on TPN tonight.  We will see how his labs come out tomorrow.  He is starting slowly, beginning with some apple juice.  Later we’ll see if he’s up for pureed soup or ice cream.  Dr. B has told us that any food he eats is purely for pleasure as the TPN is delivering all of his nutritional needs.  With the partial bowel blockage, not enough food is passing through to absorb nutrition.  He has a gastric tube that we can allow to drain his belly as needed. 

He took his first spin around the ward this morning and sat in a chair for a few minutes.  That in and of itself is progress. 

I suspect it will be a few more days before he is able to go home. 

We are glad that things are turning around for the time being.  Glad for this rest and recovery period.