Dad Update (WITH UPDATES...SEE BOTTOM OF POST)

For the family (and blogging friends)...

Dad was making some slow progress last week, but was still very fatigued and developed a cough. Sunday night, he started running a fever again (102), so mom drove him to Methodist Hospital in Houston.

They took him right in and they say his stent and drain/flush tube are working great (very good news). They ran a lot of neurological tests to make sure his sleep talking, sleep walking (1 episode) and hallucinations (possibly just sleeping with his eyes open) were not signs of something serious. All of his neurological tests came back great (thank you God) so they're cutting back and weaning him off his Paxil. He already seems to be doing better in that department.

Soooooooooo, the very good news is, we just need to find the source of the fever. They've run cultures on the stent, drain/flush tube and port-a-cath and are leaning toward removing the drain/flush tube.

We decided to wait to update everybody until we had news this time. Sorry for the delay, cousin Sandy. :)

UPDATE 8/5/09:
Just talked to mom and dad snored all night long and didn’t “talk” to anybody. So, evidently the “crazies” were caused by the Paxil. They’ve taken him off the Paxil and they’re transitioning him to something else for his depression/anxiety. He’s still got a slight fever at night and a little cough and once they figure that out, he should be all good. The doctors are meeting this morning.

UPDATE 8/6/09:
Bonnie just talked to mom and there's a good chance mom and dad will be coming home today. One of the doctors ran a different test to determine where the fever was coming from. The culture showed a mixture of e-coli and yeast. The doctor thought it might be from the bile being routed directly into the colon. She gave dad some different antibiotics and he didn't have fever this morning.