Hello Everyone - Greetings from the hospital :) Yep, we're still here - 13 days in!
We wanted to get a detailed update out on this last week's happenings as the last post seems so long ago! Too many events - Wheew! So last Tuesday the 24th, Jas had a chest tube put into his back, directly into the middle of his right lung. After about a day of getting the right pain med combo going, his pain level has been manageable and his nausea stopped after deciding that the narcotics were making things worse vs. better. We truly are amazed at how much more energy he has these days compared to this past month. What we thought was a cold, clearly was this abscess festering/growing that was sucking his energy and causing more than normal pain. So, he's back down to his typical dosage of ibuprofen a couple times a day and doing great on the pain end of things.
Also, Jas had a CAT scan a couple days after the chest tube was inserted that showed us great news! The abscess was half the size of what it showed to be before the chest tube was put in. Our surgeon was quite encouraged! But we sure did Thank God in front of him for the wonderful news!
In all honesty, this has been our hardest hospital stay yet in terms of frustrations that we've had with mistakes that have been happening. While we don't want to spend much time on this point, because it deters us away from our main focus of this blog, we will say that MAJOR problems have happened almost daily that have led us to wits end. It truly is frightening to think about patients in hospitals that have no advocates and/or mentally are not able to comprehend what is going on while admitted. All things came to an absolute head yesterday! They did a procedure on Jason in the morning that involved injecting medicine into his abscess which then leaked(gushed) into his lungs, causing him to choke/not be able to breathe and ultimately throw it up. After that happened Jason questioned the Dr. further and found that this Dr. had not been forthcoming with him prior to the procedure and that the procedure had not been cleared by his surgeon. The surgeon knew that there was an air leak in Jason's chest tube and that this procedure would do nothing for him because of that. Wow,Wow, WOW! I'm sure you can imagine how upset we were that he had to go through yet another episode like that due to a mistake on the Dr's end. We are to the point where we feel like we need to guard the door and not let anyone touch Jas unless our primary Dr. told us the night prior that they would be coming to do X,Y,Z. You really have to be armored and ready for things that are thrown your way...sadly enough!
However, here's the really cool part! God perfectly timed Jas' good buddy Dan to visit us in the hospital last night after one of the most frustrating/emotionally exhausting nights we've had yet. Dan happened to be in the states for the week and Jas was thrilled to get to see him while in town. God used Dan to help encourage us on a really, really tough day to remind us our purpose through this journey - to bring others closer to Christ by allowing them to join us through this trial. Who would think you would get to experience true JOY, when you are so emotionally exhausted from the chain of mistakes/frustrations that have taken place that have been out of your hands? Well, once again God provided that to us! Dan shared with us how he and Heather (his wife) have been positively impacted in their walks with Christ by following our story. Ah... isn't God so good with his perfect timing? He knows exactly what we need and when we need it and continues to provide us exactly what he knows is best. And that helped bring our focus back to where it needed to be. And it was such a blessing to catch up with him and have him pray for us before he left. THANK YOU DAN!
So, at about midnight going into Wed morning they took Jas down for another CAT scan to see if there were any changes to the size of abscess. We were praying that the last mishap wouldn't cause us to be in the hospital for yet another week. After speaking with our surgeon about the CAT tonight, we learned that the abscess was slightly smaller than last Friday and that his lung damage had almost fully recovered. PRAISE THE LORD! So incredibly thankful! As long as tomorrow's x-ray looks ok, they will release Jason home tomorrow (Thursday). Now he will be coming home with his chest tube in, until his "air leak" in the abscess heals. He will remain on liquids until early next week and then we may be able to introduce smoothies. So, we'll be back to Baltimore at the end of next week to test his lung to determine whether it needs to remain in longer or not. They are being conservative in their approach due to it involving his lung, which is absolutely fine with us. We just need to continue to pray that he doesn't lose any more weight and can at least maintain it at this point until he can get back on food again.
In the meantime, my mom has flown back to Ohio and now Jas' mom is in town helping out with Taylor. So comforting to know we have live in help right now to give me the flexibility to be with Jas as much as needed. Thanks GIANT THANKS to the mommas : ) And a BIG THANKS to our friends (Brandie, Mel, Renee, Dan, Eric) who have made the trips to Baltimore to keep Jas company, transport Taylor and Grandmas back and forth to Baltimore to help brighten his day, along with helping with airport drop off. It was an amazing help!
Please continue to keep Jason's ultimately healing in your prayers and for us to address any issues/concerns in a way that is Christ-like. God can use us through this too!
Much Love,
Meg
