Update from Leeanne Lewis

Hi Everyone,

Another long day in ICU. Doug is still on a ventilator. The doc said less is more right now for him. He remains stable and looks great (all things considered). Today they did dialysis and plasmaphersis again and gave him another 4 bags of platelets. His IGa numbers are coming down and his kidneys are beginning to produce. Another surgeon insisted they remove this silly little tube they installed to take blood samples with. It has been a major problem since they put it in - it leaked like a sieve and a lot of the transfusions went in his arm came out there. So they put a 10 lbs. sand bag on Doug's groin to stem the bleeding. Finally a doc got smart and deleted both the problem (bleeding) AND the sandbag! They installed a feeding tube today and will give him something to eat tonight. Doug hasn't had any food in 2.5 weeks due to tests that required an empty stomach then he got that awful thrush that closed his throat down - then of course there was everything that happened this week. They lowered his oxygen level on the ventilator as in beginning to wean him off of it. It will be a few days yet but he is doing incredibly well. The nurses said he responded a bit last night (in their words he was extremely agitated) during repositioning him and he wasn't liking it - A GOOD THING!
I'll keep you posted.
Thanks again to you all for your support during this stressful time.

Leeanne