We know it is not normal to share all these grueling and perhaps morbid details but we want to be open and share because the human tendency is to hide from suffering, hide from death, hide from pain, and hide from one another. Hence this honest telling to bring into the light how challenging it is to deal with a serious illness. There are many, many others who are suffering as much and more. If we can face our pain and hurts; if we can allow them and accept them as part of life, then we can be released from the fear of them.
There is a spiritual practice, in Buddhism called Tonglan, in which you breathe in the suffering of a hungry child, a homeless family, a war-torn city, and countless other situations. You simply breathe in the pain and suffering and breathe out your wishes for healing and peace and comfort. When you do this the heart of compassion within is awakened. The suffering is shared, mitigated, softened, and we all realize WE ARE NOT ALONE. We are love and we can express love. You all are part of our spiritual practice. I am telling you, we feel your love coming at us like a substance that brings peace, healing, and amazing outcomes.
The ongoing saga does what? It continues. . .
After last Thursday’s fever Michael was fever-free Friday and Saturday. He was able to putter around the house. Then Sunday morning his temp went up to 102.7 and he took Tylenol and that brought temp down a bit but Monday morning he still had a fever. I called palliative care and they encouraged us to go to a local ER, so we went to the one we really like. There was only a 15-minute wait.
They took really good care of him. Put him on antibiotics by IV and also hydrated him a lot with saline and gave him a potassium drink and a good dose of Tylenol. They did a lot of bloodwork. All his liver levels and bilirubin (3.6) were still high and close to what they were on 2/12/24. Still don’t know why. He started feeling better fairly quickly, so that let us go home with an antibiotic prescription. The next day, Tuesday, we got a call from the ER doctor who said the blood cultures showed he did have a blood infection that probably originated in the bladder, so some form of sepsis. That is serious stuff. The doctor said he would have kept Michael in hospital overnight if he had known. But since he was still feeling better, doctor said he could stay home.
Tuesday night, his right drain started leaking again so we are dealing with that and believing it will stop again. The leaking is nowhere near as bad as it was last week.
Also- my hip is doing a lot better. Thank you very much for that.
And Michael has added another story so be sure to check it out.
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