Our favorite LF Midwood would like you all to know exactly what’s goin’ on with him and his health.
I left him about an hour ago in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit, where he has been for a few days, and will be until they see fit to move him to a room of his own. Good news is that he’s improving every day and will have a much better quality of life down the road. However, he wanted me to let you all know more specifically what he’s dealing with so here goes:
Entered Rhode Island Hospital Emergency room after calling an ambulance here at home, trying to keep drinking “regular” Powerade to stay hydrated and get electrolytes at which time he was non-stop vomiting and had been, not even able to keep down water, for 5 days prior. His blood sugar shot up to over 500, nearly in a coma numbers. They got his body calmed down a bit over the next couple days, enough to have him try some broth, cream of wheat, and clear water/ice/ginger ale. He did so so on that for a couple days. However when they took a look inside of his stomach, small intestine and insides overall, they found that he had a hole in his stomach, aggravated by a duodenal hernia, along with gastroparesis, which means paralysis of the stomach. It’s a functional disorder affecting your stomach nerves and muscles. It makes your stomach muscle contractions weaker and slower than they need to be to digest your food and pass it on to your intestines. This leads to food sitting too long in your stomach. So yeah this is a major problem.
What happened next was, some wonderful surgeons went back in and removed a portion of his small intestine that was deemed ‘dead’, let him recover a couple days from that in the Surgical ICU on a ventilator and tube up his nose to make sure his blood pressure stayed normal and fluids drained, then went back in and reconnected his stomack to his intestine, also sewing up the hole. Oddly, the surgeon had said to me that he believed it was all ultimately connected to the appendectomy he received back in the day.
So as of now, LF is not a happy little pirate as you can imagine! No ventilator but still with the nasal tube. (We know how well THAT went over LAST time don’t we!) However the takeway and focus really is better feeling and better life and no more complications from diabetes. If a drink or any consumable for that matter other than home made doesn’t have the words “sugar free” or “diet” on it, it doesn’t find a home in OUR house.
I’ll update again in a couple days as he progresses. I can’t thank you all enough for the prayers and love, all of which I do remind LF he’s getting from his peeps. So, BACK ATCHA peeps! Now go get rid of all that toxic crap in your fridge. Yeah you. I’ll know if ya don’t.
xoxoxoxoxo
~The Producer