My Uncle Bob is the man with the Liberty shirt on the far rightBob was admitted to Southwest General on Thursday with extreme pain in his back and flank. We were not sure what was the problem. On Friday (4th) Bob went to the ER for extreme back pain and was told he was passing a kidney stone. The pain stopped (they said it had passed into the bladder) so they sent him home to wait to urinate it out. Sat through Monday he was fine, however Tuesday the pain came back but not so extreme. He took Advil and Cranberry juice to try to flush it all out. This continued on into Wednesday. By 2:00am Thursday his pain level was at a level 10 so back to ER we went for another cat scan. This one showed some damage to his right kidney and a small tumor on the left kidney. They gave him pain killers and sent him home to follow up with a urologist on our own. We were not able to see a urologist until 4:00pm on Thursday. By this time Bob was almost delirious with pain!! The urologist admitted him to Southwest through the ER (hospital has been really full with all the cold/flu/repertory junk going around) That was a “God-thing” because our youth pastors wife Jen is an er nurse at Southwest and when she saw Bob she could not believe how bad he looked. He was retaining fluids (face, hands & feet were all puffy) and had no color at all. She got him started right away on pain meds and had the best ER docs working on him!! After he got the “happy juice” he stopped shaking and moving around for the first time in about 24 hrs. The pain was finally better!!! On Friday they performed kidney scan, chest scan, lung scan, chest x-ray, echo test & vascular test. They determined that he had suffered an infarction on his right kidney and about 1/3 of his right kidney is now dead tissue. The cause of that was probably a blood clot, however they still have not found the clot anywhere in him!!! He also has a-typical pneumonia (no fever and white blood cell count never elevated) so on Friday am they removed a liter of fluid from his right lung. At this point all those test have come back with good results. We are still waiting for the pathology reports till Monday. After the fluid was removed, his color returned, his pain has decreased and his oxygen blood levels are back to normal and his breathing is much better!!!!!!!!!! He had been on oxygen since we were admitted! He is still in the ICU but probably today they will put him in to the step down unit!!!!! Yeah!!! His symptoms are better however, we are praying to find the causes! A typically healthy 44 year old guy should not have kidney failure and where did the fluid in the lungs come from???? Huge questions for me as all of you know I am a control freak!!!!!!!!
Please continue to pray for answers! Also for Bob to go on blood thinners would mean he would not be able to work his construction jobs and they would not let him work on a line company at the fire station.( light duty or a desk job!)
That will be life altering!!! Pray also for the girls and I. I am tired and not very patient! Ashley had to return to Liberty Saturday and leave Dad (that was tough!!) so pray for her away from us. Erika and Bekah have been sitting in the waiting room for 3 days now!! They have been so wonderful. The dog is probably the most lonely because we have been gone so much!!!
