Somewhat better news

Kevin here.

Things are looking a bit better as of this afternoon.

Michael had a rough night; his nurses accidentally pulled out his nephrostomy tube as they were moving him around (it was intended as a temporary measure so it was not stitched in). He said of this event that it "hurt less than he expected." They then bundled him off to Interventional Radiology to have it re-inserted, which proved to be a fruitless endeavor, so they made him NPO (nothing by mouth, perhaps his least favorite thing aside from catheterization), catheterized him (ouch) and started him on steroids so they could give him contrast for a better image, and scheduled him for another surgery in Interventional Radiology in the late morning.

He went down for that about 10:30 am, and that's when I wrote the preceding post, waiting for him to return. He got back to his room about 12:45 or 1:00, and I got back in to see him about 1:30. They put nephrostomy tubes in both of his kidneys this time, which turned out to be a good thing, as his right kidney was very full - the interventional radiologist described it as "blown up like a balloon" which is not a good image.

About 2:30, I got back in to see him, along with Mom and surprise visitors John and Rachel. We didn't stay too long (since they close the ICU to visitors from 3-4) but we did see him a lot more alert than he had been in the morning, with reduced oxygen demand (down to 10 liters from 15 this morning) and a good appetite - he had several bites of a turkey sandwich, a wee cinnamon roll, some pita and hummus and about half of a peanut butter rice krispy bar with chocolate. The interventional radiologist pronounced him to be "doing great" which is nice to hear.

He's been off the BIPAP now for more than a day, and our new target (according to his hospitalist) is to get him down to the oxygen level where the ICU team pronounces him "too easy" and sends him back to Station 30 (Acute Oncology Observation), where we can make a new target.

- Kevin