So Jim's back in the hospital tonight. No, not in Boston, in New Jersey, not far from our house.
I was a little uncomfortable from the moment he got released on Saturday. He just seemed to be hacking way too much for my comfort. I even took his nurse aside and asked her if infectious disease had cleared him for release because he just sounded so congested in the lungs. She told me they had. I had also asked the ENT people about breathing treatments at home...he had been on them every day in the hospital....did he still need them? Oh, no they told me. Saturday night he was hacking. Sunday night he was hacking. We got home yesterday and he was still hacking, and hacking up brown goo. This just didn't seem right to me. When he got up this morning Jim wanted to go to the emergency room, and I agreed with him. I thought he still had pnemonia and the drugs he was sent home on just didn't seem to be helping.
I was going to take him to Deborah Heart and Lung but my boss Jerry called and said Deborah disbanded their emergency department, so I brought him to Kennedy Health Systems in Washington Twp, Gloucester County. I figured they bring all the car accident patients there, and it's a beautiful place, and it's close, so that's where we went. We got there at 10 a.m. They took him in around noon. We brought a sample of what he was spitting up, so that helped. They ran all kinds of tests...another chest x-ray, a cat-scan, blood work, and they got a hold of Bill Nye the Science Guy and Dr. Tannas at Lahey. Jim has pnemonia on the left side of his chest. The right side has cleared up. But this pnemonia has been going on for AGES...everyone reading this blog knows that. Enough is enough already.
The ER doctor got a hold of a pulmonary specialist and at first they were talking about releasing him on some new meds, but the pulmonary guy decided Jim needed a bronchoscopy to just get that crap out of him once and for all. This was what they had talked about doing at Lahey but didn't do. So they say that they'll do that tomorrow. I think Jim will feel a lot better once he can take a deep breath and sleep. The only bad thing is now he may miss his first therapy appointment on Thursday. He may get out of Kennedy tomorrow, but he may not, so I'll call them tomorrow and just put them on notice that I may not know until Thursday morning whether he can make the appointment or not.
I actually just got home a little while ago. I had run out of the ER to go pick up Jimmy, got him to do his homework, then came back to the ER. We left around 9 pm, I got him a Happy Meal, then gave him his bath and put him to bed. Jimmy wants to sleep in my bed to "keep me company" so I went ahead and let him. He started crying when he heard Daddy had to stay in the hospital, so I'll indulge him.
I'm scared they're going to screw up Jim's vocal chords. I'm scared he may pick up another infection from the hospital. I'm scared about everything. But there's nothing I can do. The only good thing is I'm so wiped out from not getting any sleep last night listening to Jim gagging into his cup that I don't need a valium tonight to fall asleep.
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