Hospital, Week #1

I did not expect this past week would be like this.

It started off pretty well with a four-day weekend, but last Saturday, SY started feeling a little sick. The symptoms made it seem like the flu, so we weren't worried at first. On Sunday, I told her to get some rest while I took care of the kids, so she spent pretty much the whole day in bed.

On Monday morning, she said her fever had gone down, which gave us some hope that she might make the flight the next day, but in the evening it came back up. Still thinking she had the flu, I rescheduled her flight for the earliest I could -- the 22nd.

On Tuesday, we got released after a brief rehearsal for our deployment ceremony, and I came straight home to take care of the kids again. She was still feeling by the afternoon, so I left the kids with a neighbor couple and took her to the emergency room on-post.

We got there at 5:00, got seen by 7:30, and she was admitted around 10:00. From samples the doctors determined that it wasn't flu -- it was a bacterial infection of the blood. Uncomfortable with the level of care they could provide at Fort Hood, at 2:30am Wednesday morning they transferred her to Intensive Care Unit in the nicest civilian hospital of the area (Scott & White in Temple). Before we left, I spoke to the doctor in charge, and he said that they wouldn't deploy me until my family was situated -- a good thing, but it left me feeling guilty for not going with my guys....

While SY was getting transferred, I went home to get some rest and then come back in the morning with the kids and a friend who could watch them. When I saw that she was set up and got the low-down on what was going on, I took the kids back home for their naps and arranged to come back in the evening. (While I was at home I finished the video for my unit's video.)

At that point, her situation was pretty serious. She was dehydrated. She had a blood infection , her platelet count was really low (they do transfusions for people with less than 50; hers was below 20), and her breathing was really shallow due to a build-up of fluid in one lung's pleural space.

So -- one step at a time.

On Wednesday, the focus was on rehydrating her and administering the antibiotics necessary to fight the infection, which they found out was of Methicillin-Sensitive Staphylococcus Aureus (MSSA). The fact that it was the drug-sensitive strain was fortunate.

On Thursday, SY was transferred to a regular hospital room, where she waited for the doctors to perform a Trans-Esophegeal Echogram (TEE). Sadly, after making her skip breakfast and lunch, they cancelled the procedure and rescheduled it for the next day. I liked this room a lot better, because there was a two-seat couch I could sleep on instead of a reclining chair.

On Friday, they tried again with the TEE, but to do it they have to have SY skip breakfast again. And though they were able to get it done before noon, no one ordered the lunch for her, meaning she had to go without lunch again. When I found out about this, I was furious, and "registered my discontent" with the staff (politely, of course, but firmly).

Because her breathing was still short, the hospital staff moved SY to the "progressive" ward on Saturday, which is sort of between the ICU and regular care. Because of a transfusion, her platelet count is now comfortably above 100; to remedy her short breathing, they gave her a kind of "pressurizing" face mask designed to force air into the lungs and help her breathe more deeply.

That became a big issue because it meant she had to skip another meal -- after she'd received it and waited a couple hours for me to arrive to eat it. When I told him this would be the fifth meal she'd miss in the past three days and that it wasn't reasonable to expect someone to get better if they don't eat, he got really irritated. Stating that he'd been doing this for 17 years and that HE was trying to "save her life," she said it was necessary that she not eat in case something more serious happened.

At that point my wife started crying, and I felt really bad. If she'd eaten as soon as she'd gotten her dinner, she wouldn't have had to go hungry again, but the only reason Dr. Meanie over there was able to take it away was because she waited for me to bring some Korean foods she really liked.

I aked for a minute alone and the doctor stepped outside; he apologized to me later and I said it was fine (I figured he did know what was best, even if his concerns were a bit narrow). In any case, I figured it wasn't a good idea to argue heatedly with a doctor in his own ward.

The move to progressive bummed me further because I couldn't get to sleep on the couch anymore. In fact, there wasn't a whole lot that I could do for her, so SY said it was OK for me to go home to sleep. I left at about 2:00am.

In retrospect, I can see the doctors' priorities in treatment -- rehydrate to ensure access to blood samples, raise platelets to prevent excessive bleeding near cathetar sites, and identify the strain of bacteria while administering antibiotics to combat the infection.

The remaining tasks for this coming week are to identify the source of the infection and eliminate it, improve breathing, and reach a sustainable level of health so that she can get out.

It's still a long road, though.