Saturday Morning

Thursday evening they did tests and his kidney hadn't improved so the doctors decided to try giving him a huge amount of fluids over a short time to try and jump-start the kidney. They also gave him more bicarb as his blood was still acidic. He had an MRI because they want to rule out the possibility of a clotting disorder (tiny clots in the small blood vessels which could be why his platelets were so low).

As of Friday morning he seemed the most alert that he had been all week and his kidney seemed to be working better than it had. As the day went on though, Dad became less alert and more confused. We found out that the MRI was negative, so that was good, and they also did a study of his legs to make sure he didn't have a clot (DVT), which he didn't. However, his potassium was off (which I guess is typical when you give someone a bunch of bicarb and they aren't eating), so they've been having to give him that regularly. They also gave him two units of blood in the afternoon to help increase his red blood cells and platelets. Last time they gave him blood it really helped so we were hopeful that this would make a significant difference.

I just talked with my mom this morning and she hasn't seen any of the doctors yet, probably because they haven't received any results from the blood tests yet (they seem to take a really long time!). But, Dad seems to be worse today that he was yesterday, so that is pretty discouraging. A new issue is that his abdomen has been swelling and we aren't sure why. I'll post again once we hear from the doctors.