He had had spirometry at 11:30. After I got there, the resident came to talk to me. Ricky had scored only 70ish percent on his FEV1, which is way lower than his usual (in the 80s or 90s). We both agreed that if he would just do his vest, his lung function would improve and he could get home soon. I convinced Ricky to do the vest for at least 10 minutes during his next treatment. He'd been without a fever all day (yay). He was still a bit subdued and not himself, and said he was coughing more, but he's definitely had a huge improvement.
The resident also said that the more sensitive and accurate H1N1 test had come back negative. That means he doesn't have *any* type of flu A. Just some mystery flu! She wanted him to get the H1N1 vax as soon as possible, but wanted to check first to make sure whether it needed to wait til his Tamiflu was finished.
Later on, the nurse came in with the H1N1 vax syringe in hand. I asked her if he was supposed to get it before finishing the Tamiflu. She paged the doc and hadn't heard back when I left at 4:15... He'll probably have the shot tomorrow.
The respiratory therapist was just getting started with the treatment when I left. Ricky called me a little later and announced proudly that he'd done it for the whole 30 minutes. Yay!! I praised him a bunch. Hopefully he was also able to cough up some sputum for testing. They want to make sure he's on the right antibiotics. Chances are he is (IV Septra, Tobramycin, and Ceftazidime), but this will give us a better idea of what he's growing out right now. (Isn't it cool how they tailor the antibiotics to which bacteria the patient is growing? CF care has come a long way from the guesswork of yesteryear!)
A cool thing that happened while I was there... Ricky has been wanting rice to eat ever since he was admitted. (He has been drinking his orange juice + Miralax and sometimes his nutrition shakes, but other than that just eating rice with soy sauce.) Today around 3:15 I went down to the cafeteria to see if they had any. They did not, but when he heard how much Ricky wanted to have rice (with soy sauce) the worker offered to put some in the steamer. He said to come back in 20 minutes. I came back and his coworker gave me the rice, two generous containers full. He said it was FREE because of it being for a patient!! Isn't that awesome? I'm going to be sure to write a letter to the cafeteria manager. These guys went above and beyond!
Guess that's it for now. Oh, it's possible that he could have only a week's stay, if he can bring his spirometry numbers up by the end of the week-ish. That would be nice. I even offered to do IVs at home. :)
1 comment:
Glad things are a little better and glad Ricky doesn't have the H1N1 flu. I'm so happy that he did his vest for that amount of time. That is SO SO important to keep our lungs healthy!! I'll be praying he continues to do his vest, so he can get his PFT numbers back up!
That's so sweet that they cooked him the rice...how nice! I LOVE rice!!
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