Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Hello Lovely People --

It has been awhile since I've written. We went to see Dr. Peter Haskisaki, an Infectious Disease doctor, today. Craig saw him in early May one time before his hospitalization. He is the one who briefly treated Craig for Brucellosis -- and then during hospitalization when the test was repeated and was negative, the treatment was stopped.

Dr. Haskisaki could tell that Craig was having an effect on his demeanor from the steroids, because he is very animated and high energy despite having a serum albumin that would otherwise make a person incredibly fatigued and lethargic. He could feel edema in the abdominal wall and abdominal organs. Craig continues to have marked edema of the lower extremities and has taken to joking "Don't call me sausage toes!" He bought size 10 6E shoes the other day -- they are almost square!

Dr. Haskisaki wants to continue to pursue a possible infectious cause and so is sending blood to the CDC in Atlanta to test for Brucellosis, Leptospirosis, and Q Fever. We feel really good about this. Also, he is going to notify the CDC about the proximity of Craig's illness to the swine flu vaccine, which he received about 6 weeks prior.

I witnessed something today that I have never seen before. When it was time to get the blood tests, a sweet woman came into our room, explaining how she used to be the receptionist and had recently finished additional training to become a medical assistant. She aked Craig, very hopefully, if he was an easy draw, to which he optimistically replied, "I know you'll get it". Craig found the "sweet spot" on his arm where he has had countless other successful draws in the last 2 months, and circled it with a pen. Then he gave her step by step instructions -- and 2 pokes later, still no blood. This is the part I have never seen before. Then Craig offered to draw his own blood -- why wouldnt he?! He took the butterfly needle and
expertly and quickly got into the vein and we had 3 vials of blood in no time. Craig has certainly become desensitized to procedures and is his own best advocate, for sure.

Still having dialysis about once a week. Creatinine close to 2 now (normal less than 1.7) so this is good. Bun still in the 80's to 100's, which Dr. Haskisaki thought was primarily due to the steroids. So dialysis being done mainly to pull extra fluid off and lower BUN while we wait for serum albumin to increase (still at 1.0; normal 3.4 or greater).

I am headed to Wisconsin with Nick and Amanda this Friday. Craig really wanted to go but just not a good idea with having a central line and needing dialysis still and needing Coumadin adjusted and having such pronounced edema. So we cancelled his ticket and of course hope to use it in the not too distant future.

That's it for now.

Love, Sharon