Trying to Be Responsible, But Feeling Like This Was a Mistake

Jon is a patient at Virginia Hospital Center, admitted last night. He called Kaiser yesterday to say that he had a fever and a longstanding cough -- and they told him to skip past Urgent Care and go straight to the Emergency Room.  That is not what he wanted to hear. But it was worrisome that his fever went up so fast, and to the place (100.5) that he is mandated to report. He looked kind of bad yesterday evening, but he certainly was not anxious to go to the ER.

The ER was very crowded, and we had to wait a while, but they got him into his own room with a curtain. The hallways were packed with people on stretchers, and the usual police hanging around. 

Jon was clearly not in big trouble, but they did lots of tests.  X-ray, EKG, CT scan, blood cultures. Gave him some vancomycin right away. 

They admitted him to keep an eye on him. He could see that coming and he wasn't pleased about it, but transplant patients with fevers are a special breed, and they weren't going to let him walk out of here. 

This morning he feels a little better, he still had a fever overnight. They are probably going to make him stay another day.  The Infectious Disease doctor is the next one who will look at him. They detected no viruses (no covid, RSV, flu) and the CT scan was vague on what is going on in his lungs. The easy diagnosis of pneumonia has not happened (that's what we thought it might be, of course).

He may be here for another day as they wait for his fever to go away.  Meanwhile, all the things he was trying to do today are getting done by other people, or are on hold. Carrie and I loaded the acetylene tanks that were important to get to Loudoun, so progress is still happening.

So far it's kind of a non-story, except that he is in the hospital. He hasn't been admitted to a hospital in about a year (the transplant was on 4/15). Oh well. At least he isn't terribly sick. We need him to be better so he can take care of me next week, in case my knee surgery really happens on April 5.

...
Further update:  the ID doctor came in (after probably hearing from other specialists that Jon is not taking all this very well, and keeps asking them to confirm when he can go home) and was clearly quite well-versed in Jon's medical history.  Understood and remembered all the details of the last year, and after some amount of conversation he unearthed that Jon had been turning over some leaf mulch piles on Sunday, using the loader, unmasked. This is as likely as anything to be the cause of this particular fever. I am glad to have a hypothesis.  The doctor said that they are very conservative when it comes to transplant patients (what I just said above, and he even used the word "special" to describe Jon) and they take fevers very seriously because immunocompromised people can take a dive quickly.  We liked him very much. He was thoughtful and a good communicator. The doctor before him (lung specialist) was impatient with Jon's attitude and acted pretty mad at him for questioning why he was here.

Anyway, maybe that's the answer.  He is here until they say he can go.


Comments

  1. Anna NewcombMarch 28, 2023 at 9:47 AM

    Luckily he'll have lots of people around to help you if he's not at 100% when you need him to be.

    ReplyDelete

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