Little progress

DH started to make a small improvement yesterday, but not much. His enzyme levels got back to normal in his pancreas, but he is still inflamed and in much pain. His oxygen still drops too low, when he's not on it. His BP is high. They did finally, later in the afternoon, let him start having some ice chips and some ice type lemon flavored drink, but apparently that was a mistake because it added to his pain and caused a fever? at least that's what they are telling him now.

The doctor for that day (we actually met her once, when we lived across the street from the hospital. She used to bring her dog to work on the weekends and take him outside on the big yard and sometimes her sweet dog would come over to our yard if dh was outside LOL.) called me about 8:30 last night, but for the most part updated me on everything dh had managed to update me on. She said the oxygen issue was due to the opioids. She said he should have his high BP monitored/treated. I said he doesn't usually have high BP. Later I read online that low oxygen can cause high BP, so it's probably just from that. All cause and effect.

Then the night shift came on and another bad night. He can have the pain med every 4 hours, but it's only lasting him about 2 hours, so he's in pain for almost 2 hours by the  time he can have more. The day shift is good about getting it to him at 4 hours or shortly after. He texted me at 1:30 last night just miserable with pain. Said he'd asked 3 times in the last 2 hours. I said what do they say?? He said they say ok and walk out and don't come back.  I said push that call button and tell them you need some NOW, that you can't even go 4 hours without pain, let alone over 6. Finally at almost 2 am they gave him some. At 6am he asked for his next dosage. At 7:30 am he texted me that he still didn't have it. What the hell?! He needs 2 doses of pain meds, on time, each night. How hard is that to take care of? Give it to him and the rest of the night he sleeps or waits until the next dose. 

Then the day shift nurse arrived and gave it to him right away. Blamed it on shift change. Then blamed the middle of the night on there being only one nurse. I told dh make sure to tell the dr what is going on at night. She'll just look at his chart and think oh good, he's not needing as much pain meds now, when that is not the case. 

The doctor last night told me she wouldn't need to do another CT scan, but dh just texted me that they are taking him back for one (that nurse, who's in xray is a friend of ours). He doesn't know why, and the doctor told me last night she had no plans to do another CT scan. This day nurse also thinks his heart is acting strange, might be from electrolytes, so she is telling dr. about it. They are also going to change his pain meds to a half dose every 2 hours to see if that helps even him out a bit on the pain, rather than a roller coaster type thing where he's good for 2 hours, miserable for 2 hours. I said that is great (I actually suggested it to dh yesterday they should try that) except how is that going to work with the night shift? They can't even get it to him every 4 hours (let alone 6) how are they going to be able to do it every 2 hours? and so he'll have a half dose in him and then have to go 6 hours?? I'll probably have to make a call in the middle of the night to complain.

The dr yesterday also did another Covid test, the deep swab type. He had a rapid test the first day, but she wanted to make sure and that one takes 2 days for results. She also told me that while he doesn't need to be transferred to the city hospital now, even if she wanted to they are all full up. She said she had another patient she needed to transfer and every bigger hospital within a couple of hours here is full capacity. I'm finding that hard to believe. Our state has a website for covid cases that is updated daily. It says there are currently 164 people in the hospital due to Covid. Our state has at least 2245 beds. The site that lists how many beds each hospital has only lists the bigger hospitals in the state, doesn't list our little hospital or the small one in the county to the north of us. I get that they can be full, but it's not due to Covid.  

They also did a chest xray, I guess because of the low oxygen, but it came back all good.

It seems odd to me that these doctors only seem to work one day, LOL. This hospital has like 7 doctors on staff and each day it's a different one. The doctor I talked to last night said she wouldn't be in today, so it will be another one, but she will be back on Friday. I suppose that first doctor I talked to the first day was the ER doctor, though. Thankfully he's had the same day nurse and she is really good, but I'm sure it will be someone different, if he's still in this weekend.

Maybe this will get him to finally get off drinking so much Mountain Dew, now that he's had to go cold turkey with it.

In other news I am so confused by those 2 luggage rack holders I ordered! Remember the undecipherable email? from the Walmart 3rd party seller. Then I got an email that they were shipping FedEx, with tracking and would be here yesterday. I get a notification yesterday your packages have been delivered. No, they haven't LOL. Nothing out front and FedEx didn't come. I look up the tracking history and it was delivered somewhere in the middle of the state like 3 hours from me, LOL. How do they do that? Like how did they deliver it to somewhere that isn't even the town on the address? Then UPS shows up with 2 big boxes from Amazon. What? I haven't ordered anything lately from Amazon. It's the two luggage racks? Huh? There is this little slip of paper inside one of the boxes with a printed message here is your gift from so and so and a QR code to scan and leave feedback. I'm so confused! But hey, I have them now and they look nice.