Day 114

Early on in this process we were told that Burt’s progress would move two steps forward and one step back.  This has unfortunately been proven true in the last week.

Early last week Burt was sick for a few days.  The nurses at the residence thought it was a gastrointestinal bug, but last Wednesday he was sent to the emergency room.  It turns out that it was actually a kidney stone lodged in his urinary tract.  Burt had a 104 temperature and was very sick, so they had an emergency operation in the middle of the night to install a stent to drain the kidney.  

The back up of the kidney function caused Burt to have a Staph infection in his urine and his blood.  He was treated with high doses of antibiotics, which he will be on for the next month.  The antibiotics irritated his vein so they installed a PICC line, which is like a hard-wired IV. 

It looked like Burt was recovering well, but then on Monday Burt became very lethargic.  He quickly lost the ability to speak and seemed one step above a coma.  All he could do was nod his head now and then and sporadically open his eyes halfway.  The doctors classified it as delirium.  His kidneys began to fail and he kept dry heaving from the build up of urea in his system.

As he was essentially helpless, the Stern family became residents of the hospital.  Connie won the prize, spending 90 hours straight on the hospital, sleeping on a fold out bed next to him.  We had him moved up to a more intensive unit so we could actually go home at night. 

In the last two days Burt has begun dialysis and has regained awareness.  He is still very week and does not have the strength to speak audibly, but if you lean in close and work at it, you can decipher what he’s saying.

We are hoping that he will only be on dialysis temporarily while his kidneys rebound.  We are not sure what caused this, we just want them to heal and for the staph infection to die out so Burt can regain his strength and get back to rehab.  Our old friends Paddy and Randy from Burt’s first rehab already have dibs to kick his ass once he gets back on his feet.