A busy weekend

Alan had a fever Friday night so they docs added a new antibiotic today in addition to Daptomycin, which is good for the infection in his blood. Tigecycline will take care of the infection through the rest of his body (like his intestine and nephrostomies tubes).

Saturday morning, Alan got to go to Rehabilitation downstairs to see therapy dogs Tux and Cowboy. Alan loves dogs so much we hoped he would get excited. He's been through so much and is still dealing with pain, so he wasn't as perked up by the dogs as we hoped he'd be. He threw a ball for Tux and seemed to enjoy watching Tux and Cowboy play. We'll take him down again next Saturday.

After seeing the dogs, Alan wanted to take a long walk . We wandered around the empty halls of MDA for a while and returned to the family room on the 10th floor where Alan was fascinated by an Olympic soccer game. After getting back to his room, we found that he did a very small poop . We felt a lot better since at least now we know things can move all the way through.

He slept reasonably well Saturday night. There were still waves of pain still coming but were much shorter. We took another walk Sunday morning, meeting Summer again in the hall on our way out where she shared her Sponge Bob blanket with Alan.

Coming back from the walk we noticed the bed was wet, and so was the sheet lining the wheelchair. Upon closer inspection, the left nephrostomy dressing was soaked with what looked like urine. We changed the dressing and we saw that the tube was kinked. Our nursing aid noted that the volume she emptied out of that bag was significantly less than normal. The urine had probably backed up and spilled out. Once we unkinked the tube the bag on the left side started filling again. We changed the right dressing too so that they dressing changes would still be on the same day.

The docs added Aloxi, a new long acting nausea medication, and Emend, for delayed nausea, to replace Zofran. Hopefully that will help with Alan's vomiting. They also added Lacutolose in addition to Senna to help with bowel movements. Since he finally had poop during our walk Sunday morning and ended up having four poops that day we were feeling a lot better.

On Sunday afternoon Miss Angela and her Aunt Mary came to visit and brought presents along with mail from home. More bubbles and a slinky and more! Alan had fun and it was so nice to visit.


Tux even gets his own ID badge!


Watching Olympic soccer


Cheering the players on


Alan and Summer - check out the cool Sponge Bob blanket she lent him for his walk!


Miss Angela demonstrates the slinky


Ooooh slinky!