Bill is Finally out of ICU and in a step down unit!!!

[Fisherwoman]

Hi All, Bill finally got out of the ICU 2 days ago but I don't like to post things to soon so I am not putting a wammy on things.

After 45 days he is now in the Cardiac step down unit on North 4, He is doing OK things are moving very very slowly and that is the pace for now. They are giving him liquid diet, but he says it all tastes like #^&#^&#^&#^& of coarse. He let me taste this shake they are giving him and I can concur it really sucked. So he has not been eating much and he has to to gain his strength back and get his tissue's healing.

His kidney's are working a tiny bit so I am hoping and praying down the road that they will start working again, but for now he will have dialysis 3 times a week. They are starting to do a little physical therapy on him which consist of sitting him on the edge of the bed for 5 min as that is all he can do right now. he is just so weak its really sad.

His vitals are holding pretty stable so far, I am not sure what his white count was today but it has gone down the other day to 4,600 which is awesome compared to 57,000. So he is off the antibiotics for now.

One of the major issues he is having is his bowel and colon are swollen really badly and are not working very well but he is discharging a ton of fluid out of his ileostomy, so they are very concerned about so much fluid coming out as there is not as much being taken in so he can get dehydrated very quickly. so they are giving him IV fluids plus they still have him on the TPN which is IV nutrition.

I just want to put this out there as i know a lot of people are working and busy but if you have a spare half hour some day to stop in and see him I am sure it would make his day as he is getting depressed and I don;t want to see that start affecting his health any more than he already has.

He does have a phone in his room as well, but I would hold off on calls for now as he gets so tired very easily, we will see how he does over the next several days and if he is perking up a bit i will post the phone number or you guys can always send me a pm or email and I will let you know how he is that day and whether its a good idea to go see him or call. Actually that would be better, if you think you may have time to drop in and see him, drop me a call on my cell 1st and I will let you know if it is a good time. You can reach me any time on my cell 617-633-6738.

Please keep the prayers going as he is not out of the woods yet but we are slowly getting him back to fight some fishies soon.

JohnR and all I love the way you posted the picture on the front page, not sure if I mentioned it before but I was able to pull it up on my Iphone and show it to Bill and read him all the comments, it really brought a smile to his face and he said to say thank you to everybody for every thing you all have done for us.

I will post more in a few days, thank you all for hanging in there with us. Love you all,
Jules