April 21, 2021
An update on Thom: It has been an interesting 10 days here on the Pathdrummer Homestead. Thom has been doing really well and his attitude has been pretty good. As many of you know, his bladder was enlarged and he has been keeping it drained via catheter since last Monday (April 12). Because of this, he has had to curb his instinct to jump and dance around. Of course, the knee being tweaked hasn't helped. So all in all, he has had a pretty good attitude about his inability to do anything except listen to books, watch movies on the travel dvd player and take short walks around the property. Infection is our biggest worry at this point in time and on Sunday night about midnight he was nauseous and had a headache and no fever. Luckily he only threw up a couple of times in a 15 minute period. However the headache stayed and we spent most of Sunday night making sure he was comfortable. Finally, after a couple of Tylenol, he drifted off to sleep about 4:00 AM and was well rested when he woke up. By noon on Monday he was feeling great again, so he played his hand drum and was able to take his wandering walk. At 5:00, he spiked a fever and we headed to the ER to see what was going on because infection is not his friend. During the time we were there waiting for his test results to come back and speaking with the nurse, all hell broke loose in the "room" next to us! 1 man in handcuffs had 3 police officers, 4 EMT's, and I'm not really sure how many nurses trying to calm him down. There was agonizing screams from him when they were trying get his IV in. I heard someone tell him to quit "acting the fool" so they could get him the treatment he needed. At one point he was screaming that his rights were being violated and that they weren't "doing it right". (I assume he was screaming about the IV, could have been anything, I don't really know). I can honestly say, I have never heard such whining and crying in my life as this guy was putting on! Then, we hear one officer say that he has to go NOW because of shots fired. At this point, I looked at Thom and told him if shots started happening in that hospital, I was going to jerk all those tubes out of him, throw him over my shoulder in a fireman's carry and get the hell out of dodge. Jeez! At any rate, they got him calmed down after a while and we found out that Thom has a UTI from the catheter being in for a week and they changed it out for him....what fun for him! :X So he is on antibiotics and resting well and doing fine. This was just a slight bump in the road. Today we had a consultation with the Intervention doctor to set up his biopsy for the mass on his lymph node. Because of the location of the mass, they will have to anesthetize him so that they can move him around as needed to get the needle threaded into the right area. The needle will have to thread between a major artery and his bowel and they will now use the catheter to inflate his bladder to help move the bowel out of the way. We really liked Dr. Montgomery. He looked at us and told us "I'm not a quitter". Well, we aren't quitters either. There has been a lot of laughter and a few tears, and we still believe that all will be well in the long run. Thank you to everyone who has sent emails, messages, texts, and phone calls. We really appreciate it and we love our friends and family.
An update on Thom: It has been an interesting 10 days here on the Pathdrummer Homestead. Thom has been doing really well and his attitude has been pretty good. As many of you know, his bladder was enlarged and he has been keeping it drained via catheter since last Monday (April 12). Because of this, he has had to curb his instinct to jump and dance around. Of course, the knee being tweaked hasn't helped. So all in all, he has had a pretty good attitude about his inability to do anything except listen to books, watch movies on the travel dvd player and take short walks around the property. Infection is our biggest worry at this point in time and on Sunday night about midnight he was nauseous and had a headache and no fever. Luckily he only threw up a couple of times in a 15 minute period. However the headache stayed and we spent most of Sunday night making sure he was comfortable. Finally, after a couple of Tylenol, he drifted off to sleep about 4:00 AM and was well rested when he woke up. By noon on Monday he was feeling great again, so he played his hand drum and was able to take his wandering walk. At 5:00, he spiked a fever and we headed to the ER to see what was going on because infection is not his friend. During the time we were there waiting for his test results to come back and speaking with the nurse, all hell broke loose in the "room" next to us! 1 man in handcuffs had 3 police officers, 4 EMT's, and I'm not really sure how many nurses trying to calm him down. There was agonizing screams from him when they were trying get his IV in. I heard someone tell him to quit "acting the fool" so they could get him the treatment he needed. At one point he was screaming that his rights were being violated and that they weren't "doing it right". (I assume he was screaming about the IV, could have been anything, I don't really know). I can honestly say, I have never heard such whining and crying in my life as this guy was putting on! Then, we hear one officer say that he has to go NOW because of shots fired. At this point, I looked at Thom and told him if shots started happening in that hospital, I was going to jerk all those tubes out of him, throw him over my shoulder in a fireman's carry and get the hell out of dodge. Jeez! At any rate, they got him calmed down after a while and we found out that Thom has a UTI from the catheter being in for a week and they changed it out for him....what fun for him! :X So he is on antibiotics and resting well and doing fine. This was just a slight bump in the road. Today we had a consultation with the Intervention doctor to set up his biopsy for the mass on his lymph node. Because of the location of the mass, they will have to anesthetize him so that they can move him around as needed to get the needle threaded into the right area. The needle will have to thread between a major artery and his bowel and they will now use the catheter to inflate his bladder to help move the bowel out of the way. We really liked Dr. Montgomery. He looked at us and told us "I'm not a quitter". Well, we aren't quitters either. There has been a lot of laughter and a few tears, and we still believe that all will be well in the long run. Thank you to everyone who has sent emails, messages, texts, and phone calls. We really appreciate it and we love our friends and family.
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