Into the ICU

Our daughter -in law Callie with Terence in the ICU last night.

 March 25, 2012

by sherry

We've been in the ICU all night- came into the ER 11 hours ago and have been in ICU for the past 6 hours.  Terence woke up Saturday morning feeling pretty bad- he slept most of the day 

and I watched his temperature since he looked kind of flushed.

Around 5 Pm we called the triage nurse at UW Medical center because he had a low grade fever of 100.4 she told us to watch it and if it rose any higher, to call. Terence is a chemo patient, so any time you're on chemo, they watch for a fever which means there is most likely an infection in your body somewhere- the danger is there is no immune system to fight it. 

His fever reached 103.4/ I texted my son and son-law this info (one is a PA and the other a nurse in the ICU)- they both said to get into an ER right away. By the time we got into ER Terence's temperature was rising....103.7/103.8/103.9......... his heart rate was 120 (high) and his blood pressure was starting to fall on a consistent basis.  They had run blood tests/and his white blood cell count came back at 23- (last Tuesday it was at 5) which indicates an infection somewhere. They ran labs/cultures/and still haven't identified the source of the infection.  But they started him on 3 antibiotics and 2 IV's for fluids (a Bolus? Pumping him full of fluids as fast as possible to raise his BP)- an attempt to be sure Terence doesn't become septic by treating the infection aggressively so the infection doesn't get out of hand.

Eric and Terence sleeping- finally.

11 hours later, his temperature is at a cool 98.8 and remaining steady. His BP stopped the downward trend and is steady, but still a little bit low. His heart rate is also lower (than it was) but still hovering at abround 100- to 105. They'd like to get it down below 100 on a steady basis.  Still no indication of the source of the infection, but the docs just wanted to get Terence through the night.  My son Eric stayed with us most of the night.

Looks like he made it :)  I'm waiting for the day shift doc to come in and review- and start the plan for today.  Most likely another blood transfusion to give him a big boost.  

He's been sleeping through the night- so far I think he's slept about 20 hours since Saturday morning! 

I'll catch you up when we hear back from his docs later this morning.