Happy 4th of July and Dad Update

Hello friends!  Today is our country’s 4th of July celebration and I hope you all are kicking off summer with a bang and enjoying it with family and friends.  It’s been long week for my family with dad being sick and everyone off schedule.  I’m feeling really off schedule myself in posting this week and so you’ll just have to bear with me as we get through this holiday week and I try to stay caught up on the blog.

It’s going to be a slow week and I’m skipping Fashion over 50 this week, but hope to get back to normal next week.  Needless to say, fashion hasn’t been at the forefront of my world right now!  We are just trying to support dad and get him back to normal the best we can.

(via BHG.com)

This is such a fun time of the year, so even though we aren’t much in a party mood right  now, I can’t help but share some pretty pics for the season.  Enjoy your day!

(via BHG.com)

Now, for an update on Dad.  For those of you who may have missed this, our situation started Father’s Day weekend, so this has been a couple of weeks in the making.  Dad was prescribed antibiotics (Amox-Clav in case you are wondering) from his primary care doctor for cough/cold symptoms before Father’s Day. He took them the prescribed time period and finished them all.  About 6 days later, he began a vicious bout with diarrhea, which continued for a few days.  Two days after Father’s Day, he was in the kitchen, got dizzy probably from dyhdration and being weak from the diarrhea, and basically fainted in the kitchen and hit his head.

He was taken to the ER where they did scans and tests to find out what was going on.  He had some brain bleeding going on and the head injury wasn’t serious (it did cause 2 black eyes, which is better now), but he was sore and not feeling well.  He stayed overnight one night and was released the next day (Wednesday) to come home and rest.  He was given an IV in the hospital to rehydrate him and get those much needed liquids in him.  He was walking by himself after getting out of the hospital, very slow, but still able to walk.  During that week, he got progressively worse day by day, to the point that he couldn’t get out of bed by that weekend and the diarrhea had not stopped completely.  We knew he had to go back to the hospital, so Monday morning we had him transported back to the ER, where he was seen again and readmitted to the hospital once again. This time he stayed in there 4 nights. During that first day back in the ER, testing was finally done and they found out he has the bacteria c diff.  We don’t know how long he had it or if he got it from being in the hospital that first night, but whatever the case, he has it and it’s a nasty bug to get rid of.

We know it all started with the antibiotics he was on, because mom read the side effects after he finished taking them and the diarrhea warning was on there. The antibiotics kill the good bacteria in the gut, leaving room for the c diff “superbug” to take over, creating havoc with one’s whole body.  We found out too late he should have been taking probiotics with those antibiotics and by the time we found this out, it was too late. Many people chimed in on my Facebook page and here on my blog talking about their experience with c diff too, so I know it’s happening all over the country and with the number of people who read my blog that have been touched by c diff, that tells me that it’s rampant in hospitals.  So bottom line that we learned…..it’s imperative to take probiotics when you are taking an antibiotic to keep this from happening and to keep c diff at bay, in case you’ve ever been exposed to it and then it rears its ugly head when your body is weak.  It’s highly contagious from what we’ve heard too.  So far, so good with the rest of us.

After all the diarrhea and getting c diff, he was completely wiped out physically.  Spending 4 days in the hospital with iv’s and fluids going, as well as antibiotics and probiotics given daily, he was slowly perking up slightly and getting a bit better, but still couldn’t get up and walk.  So, we made arrangements to get him admitted to a rehab center, where he’ll get more specialized care on getting him mobile again.  He’s been in there since last Friday night, so we are hopeful the progress will be made there and he will be up and going again soon.  It’s going to be a slow process to get him well, he’s not bouncing back fast. He’s still so weak and tired, with hardly enough energy to sit in a wheel chair and go down to eat his meals.  We all took turns staying with him at night when he was in the hospital, but we can’t stay overnight at the rehab center, so we are stopping by and staying with him during the day to keep him company and try to get him better.  We are trying to get him to eat more as that is so important to him getting well and strong again.  He has NO appetite.

Lauren came home over the long weekend and spent lots of time with him.  Needless to say, he was happy to see his girl!

I can’t imagine how he is feeling after going through all this mess!  He’s said a couple of times that this is absolutely the worst he’s ever felt in his life and I can imagine it is. We’ve never seen him this weak and fragile before and it breaks our hearts! We just want him to get better and back home and no one wishes that more than he does.  He loves his home and garden and he cannot wait to get back there again.  We hope it’s sooner rather than later, but it’s a day by day situation.

I just wanted to let you all know what’s going on this week. I’ll do updates every week to give you progress on his state of being.  I’m so hoping he’ll be home for his 90th birthday on July 14th, but if not, I’ll take them to the rehab center and read all your cards to  him.  Y’all have been so sweet and supportive to send him cards! I know they will cheer him up in a big way, so thank you all so much.  I truly have the best readers out there!

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