Michael is stable and doing okay but there has been a development with him that the doctors are working to correct. One of the chemicals in his blood spiked very high overnight and he has been moved to ICU as a precaution. He is currently very confused, combative, and doesn’t recognize me or his surroundings but that is a symptom of what’s going on and expected to go away as they get his body chemistry back under control. The doctors say that could take a few days but they caught the situation quickly and that’s always the best possible scenario. 

I will update as things as I can ans when there are things to share so, for now, I will not stick to a rigid morning/evening update schedule because the situation is fluid and I need my attention to be on wherever is most beneficial for Michael at any given time. 

Throughout this entire situation, people have asked me how they can help but I haven’t need anything until now. Here is my ask: I must insist that you respect Michael’s privacy right now and not share this development among various social circles. This is an extremely difficult situation and it is his story to tell, when and if he chooses. This is also for my protection because I do not want to be ambushed at any future social events by rubberneckers wanting salacious details of something that doesn’t concern them. I’m sorry if that sounds harsh but I want to be clear that this is non-negotiable. 

Michael gave everyone reading this access to his medical updates because he trusts your discretion and that has never been more necessary than right now. He also arranged for these updates to prevent my phone from blowing up with messages, no matter how well intended. Please honor that for him. ❤️

As predicted, Michael spent today sleeping and resting while the doctors monitored his infection. I’m happy to say it’s behaving just as they want it to so hopefully it’ll be a distant memory soon. Michael is still very tired but that should improve as the infection lessens its grip. 

The lead surgeon is off tomorrow and his team will be checking in while he’s away from the hospital. Michael has no tests or procedures scheduled so tomorrow should be a very quiet day of more sleeping and resting. Since there isn’t expected to be anything to report, I’m going to use the opportunity to take a day off from posting but I’ll be back Monday morning with an update once the doctors make their rounds. Of course, if anything noteworthy happens tomorrow I’ll be sure to let everyone know. ❤️

Michael’s results are back from yesterday’s procedure and confirms he has an infection that’s causing his fluid retention. They identified the bacteria, chose a specific antibiotic to treat it, and he’s already received his first dose this morning. His task for today is to walk as much as possible to encourage the infected fluid to leave his system so now we just have to wait for nature to take its course. (The doctors had a few other tricks up their sleeve to jump start the process but I’ll spare you those details.) Since Michael is eating well, has no fever, and his lab work still looks good, they don’t have a reason to worry the infection has taken a foothold that will lead to bigger problems, but of course the sooner it clears up the better.

Michael had a busy morning that included a surprise 6:00 am room change to make space for a Covid patient they need to isolate. They took us up to the transplant unit (oh, the irony) where he was given another private room and now he’s fast asleep. 

The infection and its effect on his ability to walk easily has set Michael back a bit strength-wise but now that they’re attacking the infection and he’s able to eat full plates of nutritious food, the doctors believe he’ll regain strength pretty quickly. 

That’s all for now, I’ll be back this evening to let you know how the day went. ❤️

Michael’s procedure went well and was completely uneventful. In fact, when he got back, he felt well enough to go for a walk around the unit and eat an entire plate of food.

The fluid collected during the procedure has been sent to the lab for examination and we won’t have the results until sometime tomorrow. Since Michael was gone most of the day and slept the rest of it when he wasn’t walking or eating, I don’t really have anything else to share so I’m going to leave it there for tonight. 

I’ll be back tomorrow morning with the latest from Mission Control (a/k/a Michael’s room). ❤️

Michael will be heading down for his procedure shortly (around 10:30ish) and will be gone about three hours. Then it will probably take another couple hours to learn how it went and what they found, so I won’t really know anything until much later this afternoon. 

He had a fine and uneventful night but since they’re late getting the procedure underway it’ll be a while before I have any further updates so I thought I’d let everyone know now rather than have anyone wonder why it’s mid-afternoon with no updates. 

I’ll be back this evening to share how the procedure and the day went. ❤️

Michael had a good day today. He’s still pretty exhausted but he walked around a few times today and ate nearly all of the lunch they brought him. The doctors have said one of their goals for him is that he cleans his plate so that was a big win today. His vitals look great, labs are almost completely within normal range, and his blood sugar is staying consistent throughout the day without any huge peaks or valleys. 

As expected, Michael will be having the procedure they discussed last week to help remove some of the fluid in his abdomen. He’s one of the first patients scheduled tomorrow so he’ll be able to get that out of the way first thing in the morning. As when I talked about this before, I won’t describe the procedure in case anyone is squeamish but google “paracentesis” if you’d like to know specifics. They’ll give him a topical anesthetic in the area where they’re working  so the procedure won’t be any more uncomfortable for Michael than when he got the extra-special IV put in a few days ago for nutritional supplementation. 

Michael is bouncing back after a rough couple of days and now his attention will be focused on building up his appetite and walking as much as he feels able so he can rebuild his strength. 

I’m sure we’ll see the doctors tomorrow after his procedure so I’ll wait to update here until after that happens. Don’t worry if I’m running a little late with any new information, it just means they haven’t come by yet. Happy Fourth. ❤️

Michael is doing fine and was able to get another decent night’s sleep. His morning labs look all right; the values that have been fine are staying fine and the ones they want to see improve are still improving. He had three small meals yesterday and, though he still needs to build up his appetite, what he is able to eat has given him no issues whatsoever. With a complicated surgery like Michael’s, you never really know how the digestive system will respond when food comes back into the picture but it appears to be consistently and delightfully cooperative, which is a big relief. 

Nutritionally, he’s still receiving an IV bag of calories and nutrients to supplement what he’s able to eat from his meal tray. The doctors have us tracking everything he eats so they can calculate how to best taper off the bag of calories. As his oral food intake increases over the next couple of days, they’ll back down on the bagged calories until he’s able to rely solely on solids. 

Michaels main issue continues to be fluid retention. His body is definitely releasing fluids but his overall swelling isn’t really going down so something in his system just still isn’t ready to play nice. The standard medications doctors rely on to manage this sort of thing have to be used very carefully with Michael because they are tricky for someone with his newly sensitive body chemistry. The best thing Michael can do is walk but between the swelling, the general activity associated with hospital life, and the  mental load of all that’s happened for him in the last three weeks, his stamina has taken an understandable hit. 

Although we haven’t seen the lead surgeon today, he’s already been in touch with the team this morning and they’ve decided to do another CT to see if they can glean some more data on the fluid retention. Michael and I were talking about it and both of us think that may be a precursor to the in-room procedure they were considering last week. We both hope they decide to do it because it will take away a lot of the fluid in short order without disturbing the delicate blood chemistry they’ve worked so hard (and successfully) to stabilize. So, we’ll se how that goes for him today. 

Yesterday was a rough one, mostly from the emotional blow of hearing he’d be here another week or so. There was also some cross communication happening among various teams with regard to his nutrition management so there was a lot of people in and out while everyone figured out who was going to take the lead on that aspect of his care. Most of my mental energy yesterday went to supporting Michael with all of that. What was leftover went to meeting with various people to emphatically encourage them to get themselves together and form a cohesive plan instead of continuing to issue us conflicting nutritional guidelines. I apologize for the brief updates yesterday but I was standing my ground among (at last count) 13 doctors, nurses, and dietary technicians across four different teams and didn’t have much leftover for anything else. 

I believe we now have a solid nutritional plan for Michael and, after a decent nights sleep, he has regrouped and is ready to get up and moving today after the CT. In fact, he was up walking with me before sunrise. 

I’ll be back this evening with an update on how the day went. ❤️

Between the surprise news this morning and a lot of doctors in and out checking on him, Michael had a rough and tiring day. Although he’s eating well and his vitals and lab work are still good, he wasn’t up to walking around so he spent most of the day in bed.

As one of his doctors said this afternoon, today he’ll rest, tomorrow is another day, and we’ll move forward. I don’t know if the lead surgeon will be in tomorrow because of the holiday so I’m not sure if I’ll have much to report. But someone from the medical team will definitely be along at some point tomorrow morning and I’ll let you know how that goes soon after. ❤️

Michael had another great night and said it was “the best he’s had since surgery.” His labs continue to improve daily and his vitals are just terrific. 

He is still cleared for soft foods and eating with no issues. The doctors told us this morning that they want to continue to monitor his nutrition intake and fluid retention for the time being so there are no surprises when he returns home. To that end, they said we can expect to be here at least another week. 

As you can imagine, this was a bit of a surprise but we will make it work because we know it’s what’s best for Michael and is in no way a setback. It sounds like it has more to do with the fact that we live too far away to pop in for a doctor visit if anything seems amiss. 

I’m going to turn off comments on this post because so we have some time and space to process this unexpected development but I’ll be back this evening with an update on how the day went. ❤️

Today was an uneventful day, which is perfectly fine by us. Michael walked around, we watched an episode of a favorite tv show, and he slept a lot. He also ate three small hospital-provided meals today with no problems! His innards didn’t act up and his blood sugar stayed reasonable, so it was a successful test run. 

The diabetes management team stopped in after breakfast and said they would like to see how he does continuing to eat soft food again tomorrow, but this time without the extra IV nutrition they’ve been giving him.  That’s the best way to see where his insulin and other blood sugar-supporting medications might need tweaking before sending him home. They said his labs continue to trend toward their goals for him so Michael’s overall nutritional and insulin needs are definitely coming into clearer focus. There are also more signs that the fluid retention issue is resolving itself, so we’re really glad to see that as well. 

There’s really nothing else to report because it was such a quiet day (an absolute godsend that neither of us are complaining about lol), but here’s an anecdote from this evening that shows how far he’s come. I’m at the hospital for every shift change so I end up hearing report as Michael’s day nurse hands him off to the night staff. The first few days, his report lasted longer than a screening of Gone With the Wind because there was so much to say. This evening it was two sentences. He’s doing so well that there’s hardly anything they need to tell each other! 🎉

That said, I do want to make sure I give a clear picture of Michael’s overall recovery so no one is surprised the next time they see or talk to him. I spend the majority of these posts talking about the technicalities of his medical issues because I want to keep everyone in the loop on any physical symptoms or issues they’re treating since those are the things that determine when he gets to go home and I know that’s what we’re all waiting for. 

However, in doing so I don’t want to give the impression that he’s full of pep and energy because he definitely is not. His energy levels are appropriate for where he is in his recovery but he is not currently the Michael you’re used to. He gets winded walking to the bathroom. He needs help arranging pillows or coming to a sitting position. He falls asleep mid sentence. He’s pretty tightly wrapped in brain fog. These things are very, very normal after what he’s been through but I imagine anyone seeing him for the first time might be a little caught off guard by his sagging energy because I’ve been talking about how much he’s walking around, etc. But for every three-minute walk around the unit, Michael needs an hour or so of rest and sleep. 

He will be back up to full strength soon enough but it will take some time to get there. His mind wants to pick up life right where we left off before we came here, but his body is definitely not on board with that plan yet. We don’t know what his at-home recovery regimen will be but I expect the doctor will want him to focus hard on resting at least until we come back for his two-week follow up and I wouldn’t expect to see him ripping around Publix or going back to his multi-mile walks at the park for a while after that.  

We’ll see the lead surgeon again tomorrow morning and I’ll pop in here soon after to let you know how it went. ❤️