Back to the hospital…

We had to take Chris back to the ER at Methodist Hospital last night.  He’s been having problems with his digestive tract the past couple of weeks, which culminated in vomiting and the nurse at RIOSA having to “decompress” (remove the contents of) his stomach around 9pm.  Chris was moaning a lot, and is probably in quite a bit of pain.  The doctor at Methodist called it “ileus“.

Chris is still at Methodist today, and they’ll be doing a CT scan of his abdomen at some point.  My mom thinks this has all come about from Chris being stuck in his room the last few weeks in isolation, thanks to the probable false positive for A. baumanii that was reported when Chris was at Methodist for the seizures.  Argh.  This isolation severely limits the types of PT/OT therapy Chris can receive – they can’t bring the equipment into the room, he can’t be folded over bolsters, stretched around, etc., which would help keep his bowels moving normally.

Subsequent weekly re-tests for A. baumanii have been coming back negative, but it looks like the isolation is permanent for the remainder of his stay at RIOSA.  Methodist cannot retract the results of the first test that caused the isolation, even if the sample was improperly collected.  It’s also strange that at Methodist, they don’t have Chris in isolation, nor are they following any contact precautions – apparently this stuff washes off the skin when you shower, so it’s not as serious as we thought even if Chris had the dang thing.  Inconsistent?  You bet.

Other bad news:  my dad damaged his spine while transferring Chris a few months back.  His condition has been deteriorating since and he’s going to need some pretty serious – and possibly risky – surgery soon.  Upper thoracic – it’s even affecting his fingers along with his legs and feet, and there’s constant, severe pain to manage.

Update: Chris is doing OK at Methodist Hospital.  They went ahead and setup a contact precaution bag on the door, so we’re wearing disposable gowns, etc., when we enter the room.  Methodist is continuing to hold everything delivered through his PEG tube (IV line for medications and fluids, with no food).  He was really alert yesterday evening, too (accompanied by the occasional blank staring, which is probably a small seizure).