Hanging out in the hospital

For the past 4 days, Keith and I have been spending the majority of our time at the hospital. Of course, this isn't our first time doing this (in May 2007 and again this past April, we spent time sitting in my mother-in-law's hospital room) and now I feel like we know this hospital pretty well! Lucky for us, the hospital is one block from Marge's apartment, so we are able to walk back and forth every day. There are also a few restaurants and shops within walking distance, so we don't have to drive too far.

So, why is she is in the hospital? Well, it all started two weeks ago when Marge had her chemo treatment. As I had previously posted, she was having nausea and diarrhea the night she had her chemo treatment and she was not wanting to or able to eat. Her sister, Kay, talked to her on Saturday and she was really worried because of how weak she sounded. She and her husband decided to go to visit her and they found her to be very dehydrated and very weak. They took her to the ER and they pumped her full of fluids. The doctors in the ER told her that she needed to keep eating and especially drinking so that she didn't dehydrate again.

Unfortunately, from that point forward, every time she ate or drank anything - even the smallest amount - she would immediately have diarrhea. (Actually, she may have had this problem since Tuesday night.) So, basically she refused to eat and drink anything and was extremely weak. Kay was really worried so she made an appointment with the Oncologist for Tuesday morning. Unfortunately, her regular oncologist was at a conference, so they met with another doctor. This doctor told them some very unsettling things - opposite of what her regular doctor told her - so she and Kay were really upset. Because of this, they made a follow up appt with her regular oncologist to get some questions answered. We found out about this appt on Tuesday night around 7pm and we decided to head to PA early Wednesday morning (we left Cville at 4am) to get to the appt at 9:30am.

The meeting with the Oncologist went really well and he told answered some questions for us. He said that the other doctor was not familiar enough with Marge's case and that some of the information he gave her was not correct. He also told us that he thought the diarrhea was being caused by some sort of bacteria or virus. We asked if it could be caused by the chemo and he said that he didn't think so, but it could be. He said he wanted to rule out any sort of bacterial infection first. He said he would like to admit her to the hospital and get fluids in her and also monitor her input and output.

So......here we are......4 days later......and.......she is still in the hospital.....she still has diarrhea and is basically not able to keep anything in. And, we are all wondering what the heck is causing it. The nurse told us yesterday that tests on her stool came back and there is no bacterial infection. But, when Keith called her Oncologist yesterday, he said that all of the test results hadn't come back yet and so he wasn't sure what the cause was. UUGGHH!! It's all very frustrating and here we sit!

Tomorrow is Marge's birthday so unfortunately she will be spending it in the hospital! We were hoping that we would be able to do something fun, but it appears that we will be hanging out here. Please continue to pray for Marge and everyone involved. And, please pray that they will find out the cause of her diarrhea SOON.