17 October 2024
I went to the hospital earlier today to see if I could catch anything. A lot goes on before noon.
Cindy the RN had already done the wound dressing. She said the wound looked good, no dead tissue, no obvious infection.
I saw that Joyce was not on an I.V. so I asked for the white blood cell count. From yesterday's 17.6 on antibiotics it had risen to 18.4 without them today. No one came in to take blood during my three hour visit, though.
I gave Joyce some tangerines with a fork leftover from breakfast and she ate them.
But she was pretty out of it, sleeping right after that. About 1:30 I woke her for lunch and she ate two small carrots, a piece of celery, more tangerines, a sip or two of tomato soup and some of her protein drink. When she tried a forkful of the tuna salad croissant, she put it down saying it didn't taste good.
She did not get out of bed today. She hardly moved her arms, in fact
Dr. Amalraj called again today to update me.
First, she said all of Joyce's vitals are normal. She wasn't too concerned about the increase in the white blood cell count without antibiotics. Infectious Diseases thought it might be attributable to chronic inflammation of the wound.
But that doesn't explain the sudden deterioration of her health since the end of last month. And the wound itself has not been an inflammation site, although the constant debridement might be inflammatory itself.
She said if Joyce remains stable tomorrow, they'll consider discharging her, most likely to a nursing facility, although they haven't found a bed yet.
So she remains incapacitated by something but it doesn't seem continued hospitalization will help.