Glen Again

I just wanted to let everyone know that yesterday morning, dad (Glen) stabilized enough that the doctor felt that it was safe enough to do the scope. His numbers were not where she would normally like them, but he was still losing way too much blood, so she felt it safer to check than to wait. She found a big blood clot at the fundus (top) of his stomach that she could not get out. There was a lot of blood in his stomach that she was able to suction out. And at the pyloris (bottom) of his stomach, it was bleeding pretty good. She sprayed some epinephrine (spelling?) on it and watched it for a while. It didn’t start re-bleeding so she felt ok about it. She was nervous about going further into the duodenum (small intestine), because she didn’t want to stir anything up. She went ahead and everything looked ok there. She will probably re-scope him before he leaves or shortly after (as an outpatient), just to make sure nothing has changed. The finally started giving him some diuretics because he has had so much iv fluid, he is very puffy. They gave him that late tonight and is doing good. They didn’t want to give it to him till now, because his blood pressure has been so low, they didn’t want him to bottom out. They also have found that on his chest x-rays that his lungs are looking better, they were looking a little full of fluid, but today’s looks better than yesterday. His sleep apnea is also worse now, sometimes he goes 20 seconds without breathing, so they put him on a cpap machine, and told him he needed to start using his at home again. His heart is also at least 1/3 bigger than it should be, so they are a little worried about that. But feel that they can give him some medicine to help. He has quite a bit more color today than yesterday. He was looking pretty gray. They are hoping to start him on a liquid diet maybe tomorrow. They are thinking that within the next day or two they can also move him to the medical floor out of icu. Thanks for all your prayers, I’ll try to keep you updated.

Love ya, Carina