Mar 6, 2006

Rough Sunday Night

Roger had a great Sunday morning. He got about 5 hours of sleep Saturday night and after they woke him up for blood drawing or something, he fell back asleep. We were so happy to hear he got some rest. As a result of that, he was so alive. It was great to hear him talking so much and excited. It gave us all renewed energy.

That didn’t last long. He ate food for the first time Sunday at lunch. That was great and he was happy about that. I don’t know if not eating for two days caused him nausea or what, but something happened. He started feeling nauseous and then nervous which causes his body to tremble, then he got hot and his fever went up. And he just felt horrible. He got very anxious and wasn’t happy at all. He finally started to calm down and then they came to draw blood. This is a sore subject with him.

He is so dehydrated that all his blood vessels are collapsed. Even the blood vessels in his a-line and his two I.V.’s are collapsed. They can get fluids and medicine in, but nothing out. But they try. And that is what pissed him off. They try all three until he is in pain and nervous and anxious and frustrated and that just brings him so down. Then they’ll finally just draw it with a butterfly. While he is in ICU, they draw blood every six hours for Roger. So this happens four times a day.

We left Roger last night for dinner and when he returned he was out cold. He was sleeping so deeply that we didn’t want to wake him up. And it was an unassisted sleep which was great. Then we really didn’t want to wake him up. We waited until his nurse had to wake him up to draw his blood. I could tell he was sleeping really well because it startled him awake and he was not quite fully awake when she started trying to draw blood. Then another nurse came in because they are all aware of how difficult it is to draw blood from him and she offered to try on the other arm. So he had two nurses at the same time hurting him on both arms and he began to have an anxiety attack. His blood pressure and pulse skyrocketed. Everyone was asked to leave but Roger insisted I stay. They tried until he couldn’t take it anymore. She let him rest for a bit and tried again. The protocol is for another nurse to try before a doctor is called. That happened and they decided to put in a large needle into his inner elbow. Since he’s been stuck all over both arms and in the elbow of his right arm already, they had to stick him in the left arm. His only functioning arm. The IV they put in is large enough that he can not bend it very well and no he can not feed himself, drink on his own or do anything at all. Although the nurse told him it was a flexible needle and he could bend it and take the pain and just straighten it out after that, it hurts him too much.

So this depressed him enormously. He cried for a bit. After he got it out of his system, he calmed down a bit. He asked for us to read some scripture and pray for him. This enabled him to calm down more. He actually fell asleep for a quick minute while we prayed.

His nurse informed him that while he is in ICU he has to ask for help. He told her that he doesn’t want to bother her, but she told him he has to now.

Please pray for him and me to stay patient with him and everything that is going on.

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