October 20, 2008

We checked him into the hospital last night to have some diagnostic work done on him. They did a CT scan, took blood, urine, etc. CT scan showed no damage from bleeding or stroke, just atrophy from old age. The blood showed no infection but the count was down, The urine showed no infection.

The conclusion is that the combination of lower blood count, elevated anemia, atrophy, lower than usual oxygen saturation, fatigue, poor eating and drinking habits all combined to make the perfect storm. We had him admitted to the hospital for blood transfusion and to get some more fluid into him. Our thinking is that his response to this jump start will be a telling factor in what life prolonging measures would be appropriate in the near future. There doesn’t appear to be any one life threatening weakness looming, but more general aging that is slowly taking its toll.

In conjunction with this hospital visit we will be visiting with hospice to see what services they can provide that will be beneficial. We have learned that hospice is not necessarily a time to die exercise. A person can be on hospice for a time and then be removed if they improve. They are there to provide additional support to the person and to the family. The support can be in the form of physical therapy, emotional and spiritual support, medical equipment, medication that provides comfort (as opposed to healing)…all covered by Medicaid.

His humor and wit persists even being in these dire circumstances. Fortunately he was not in any severe pain, though he did complain about his legs hurting. Though he wont be able to remember any of this, he was entertained all day by various non-existent occurrences. While I was there in the morning I opened his window so he could see outside. He enjoyed watching the airport across the street from his room, the men dressed in white marching around, planes coming and going, seagulls feasting on crickets, turkey’s that were on fire, the large mine on the side of the mountain. And then there was the entertainment inside the room – the floating blanket in the closet, Ryker playing in the closet and the like. In fact, Marie said he spent a good part of the day playing with Ryker. At least he was having fun…it was just the real people in his room that were stressed!

The previous few posts show somewhat of a timeline of this gradual decline that we have noticed in Gordon over the past couple of months. Kind of interesting.