So So Proud

Paul took a little stroll today. :) He was able to get up from the bed on his own and then walked halfway down the ICU hallway (maybe 20 yds?). The nurse followed with the chair and he took a little break, then got himself out of the chair and walked all the way back to his room. He did such a good job, the nurse and I actually had to pick up our pace a bit to make sure the chair was right behind him, just in case. This is such a huge improvement, I am so proud! I knew he could do it, he just needed the push.

He's been trying to eat today too. He had some eggs for breakfast, but that didn't go too well. They came up along with the feeding tube. The doctor said he'd have to put that tube back in if he didn't start eating, so Paul called me and had me bring some Panera for lunch. He really does not want that tube back!

Unfortunately, lunch was cut short by the Infectious Disease doctor stopping by. He said that Paul's white blood cell counts were still a little elevated. With no other obvious signs of infection, they've thought all along that they are elevated because of the stress of the rhabdo and kidney failure. But, with everything else getting better and the WBC still elevated, he started wondering if it might be something else... He poked around on Paul's tummy and noticed tenderness around his gall bladder. Combined with the nausea, tiredness, lack of appetite, and dizziness, he's thinking he might have a gall bladder "attack" (i.e. stones). He's ordered an ultrasound for tonight and a hydascan for tomorrow morning. And now he can't eat for 4-6 hours before the ultrasound. We'll see what the results of those tests are to see if there's anything they need to do about that.

I'd say to pray that it's not a problem with his gall bladder, but it would almost be ok if it were. I think that fixing that would take away some problems and I'm starting to think that this might have been a long-term problem because Paul almost always seems to have trouble eating greasy and fatty foods. So, please just pray that they figure it out, whatever it is, and that Paul gets better as quickly as possible!