Update on Samuel

Samuel came home from the hospital on Friday evening.  It took until Friday afternoon to get the sensitivity cultures back to know which antibiotics would work best to treat the kind of infection Samuel has.   He has been on several IV antibiotics that were broad spectrum, but they needed to know what antibiotic would actually work best to treat him. 

On the way home from the hospital, we had a minor car accident and now we are without the Highlander until it is repaired.  Thankfully everyone was safe.   Houston traffic it is a nightmare!

Saturday was a pretty painful day for Samuel, but he managed by sleeping a lot.   On Sunday morning he woke up and spent the majority of the day throwing up. He felt horrible!  By evening he was feeling much better though and he has been feeling pretty good ever since. The pain seems much more manageable than before and having one less tube appears to be working so far. The key to success with having one less tube is that the other three tubes continue to work properly so that fluids do not pool and create an abscess.  

We've been so busy since we got home and it has been hard to take the time to write an update.  We are blessed to share such a good update though!  Samuel is making progress and getting better.  He continues to take two steps forward and one step back, but in the long run that's still progress forward. Thanks for praying for him and our family. 

Samuel is out of surgery and doing well!

Samuel was scheduled for surgery at 9:00 this morning, but he didn’t go to surgery until 2:00 pm.  The nurses said there was bus crash in Houston and Ben Taub Hospital was full, so they sent the rest of the injured people to Hermann Hospital.  Last night Samuel’s fever spiked.  We still don’t have the final results back, but he definitely has an infection in his kidneys and bladder.   Dr. Kozar said she wasn’t surprised by that at all and actually expected it a long time ago being that he has some many tubes and the human body doesn’t like foreign objects.  Samuel came out of surgery at 5:30 pm.  The surgery went well and he doesn’t have a JP drain anymore!  That’s one less tube!!!  We are praying his body will tolerate it and that this will give him a little relief from the pain.   He is low on magnesium so they are going to work on bringing those numbers up.  He is still pretty out of it and only wakes up for brief periods of time. 

Dr. Kozar came by while Samuel was in the operating room and talked to me for about an hour and a half.  She was heading home and just came by to chat and see how Samuel was doing.  We had a great conversation.  After talking to her, I think it’s time to start moving towards setting things up for him to have the big surgeries he will need in Baltimore.   I am guessing we won’t be able to do that until after the first of the year, but we can start working on getting all the info to his doctor up there and scheduling those surgeries.  Dr. Kozar said that Samuel will need to weigh about 117 before he will be healthy enough to have such serious surgeries.  He is gaining weight well now and we are all pleased with his progress.    

So…..thank you for praying for Samuel and please continue to pray for his progress, peace and complete healing.  It sounds like the soonest we can go home would be possibly Friday because they won’t have the final results from some of the tests back until then.  I feel like today brought some good news though, and I am so thankful for that.  God is good and deserves all the glory!

Tuesday, October 1, 2013 Updates on Samuel

Morning Post --

They ran tests all night. Very long night! The ER was crazy last night. They were so busy and short on staff. Most things were not serious so Samuel was given priority. We haven't heard any results yet. There is no phone service in the ER. At 5:30 am, they finally gave me a chair. At 7:00 they moved us to the floor. Samuel is on the 8th floor, which is "Silver Trauma" with all the senior citiz...ens. I slept from 7:30-9:00. At 9:00, they started him on Cefapeme, Vancomycin, and Flucon, all IV antibiotics. They are trying to attack the infection from every angle, even before we know what it is. The cultures will take a long time to grow and determine what kind of an infection it is. We are hoping they will be by with the CT scan results soon. They are concerned that the JP drain has migrated again. He was scheduled for surgery on the 8th to replace all the tubes and to try and down size that JP drain and start backing it out again. Now I am not sure what they will do. He is not allowed to eat or drink anything because he may be going to surgery. We don't know anything else really. On a good note, he now weighs 105 pounds, which means he has gained 25 pounds!! I will post another update when we know more. Thank you for praying for Samuel.

 

Evening Post --

It has been a long day. Tomorrow Samuel will be having another surgery. We don’t know what time yet because we are waiting to hear from anesthesia. It will be a long procedure. Apparently Samuel has an infection in his kidneys and that may be what is causing the fever. They have decided to move forward with the surgery because by morning he will be on IV meds for a full 24 hours and several o...f the tubes and not working properly today. There is talk that they may try to remove the JP drain and see if he can tolerate it. We don’t have the final results from the blood work and cultures yet though, so I guess that could change things. Please continue to pray for Samuel. I will post more tomorrow. Good night!