If it's not this, it's that.

I figure it's about time to update this blog.

The past week has been pretty intense, and it all started with that fever I mentioned in the last post. Since my update last Wednesday, the following has happened -- in kind of chronological order:

• My dad has gotten so sick that he's too tired to swallow food or meds
• Kidney functions were deteriorating, mostly from blood pressure meds
• UTI was still going on
• He had a few bloody noses and was vomiting 3 times
• Due to sickness, he was just too tired to do much rehab.
• Because they eliminated Lysinopril, the HBP medicine that is a bit harsh on the kidneys, his blood pressure went escalating but still fluctuating
• The high BP has caused my dad to be super agitated
• At that point since my dad's BP can only be controlled by IV meds such has Hydralazine, which is more of a pain to acquire in the Rehab unit, he went back to TCU
• Before going back to TCU the Rehab doctor suggested that he had symptoms of Pheochromocytoma, a benign tumor perhaps in the adrenal glands that over excretes hormones like adrenaline that causes irregular and high BP
• Meanwhile...white blood cell counts were going up.. bad.
• While he was too tired to eat, rehab doctor suggested to put the feeding tub back in his nose--SIGH
• After my dad was back at TCU, he was injected an apparently small amount of nuclear medicine to his blood stream. This medicine would cling onto the Pheo if any and an ostreotide scan would be performed to see if the nuclear med attaches to anything that would prove a Pheochromocytoma
• Hoping that the Pheo is the cause for everything (since it's reverseable) I agreed to the doctor giving my dad Adavan so he's sedated during the o. scan so he can be still resulting in better imaging.
• The octreotide scan show no signs of Pheo. Bah. And now they found a hematoma in his psoas, a muscle between the hip and his kidney, at the same time his red blood cells count was going down. Normally for him it's about ~30 which is borderline anemic, but it went down to 23.

My dad has been not too alert and overly sleepy the last few days, due to being sick and later due to the sedative. Fortunately, tonight he was awake and alert. I was able to understand him for the most part and his answers to my questions made sense. Since he was up all day, he did get tired early and fell asleep around 8.

I was pretty much on-call to do a blood transfusion with him because of his red blood cell count, but his last blood test showed that blood levels were going back up, so no need for now.

He will get another abdomen CT scan tomorrow to make sure that the hematoma isn't growing. If it hasn't grown, back to Rehab!

As for the acupuncture treatments, I am thankful that so far we have raised about $1000, which covers 3+ acupuncture sessions. Up to date, my dad has gotten 11. However, the treatments are on hold as the Rehab unit needs to work on guidelines for outside doctors to do treatments in the Rehab Center. It's pretty much just bureaucratic crap. It will probably take long but for now Dr. Zhu, Moyee and I will just have to wait for approval......

Overall, I don't know if the past week is good or bad -- but kidneys have reverted, urine is clear and at least today is ok.

P.S. Thank you Erin for your latest donation!! Anything certainly helps.