Now A Family of *gulp* Six.

Our continued adventure at Botsford has led us to meet some great doctors. Dr. Eisenburg is the pulmonologist Doug was admitted under, and he's very casual and cool. Dr. Kaplan is also a pulmonologist that was on call over the weekend, also very nice. I didn't meet Dr. Jenner (Jennings?), the thoracic surgeon who will do the scraping, but Doug liked him. Surgery is going to be scheduled for Wednesday, hopefully in the morning. Because of the holiday weekend, it messes everything up. His surgery will be to remove the excess goo that can't be removed from around the lung. Basically, the goo is the body's way of isolating where the infection was - his left lung. It wraps around the lung, between the membrane and lung. The thicker the goo gets, it squeezes his lung and collapses it. Doctors guess that when Doug finally started having a problem, was because his entire left lung shut down. They have drained a bit over 3 liters and the goo that is left is turning into a je...

We are becoming true experts on the hospitals in our area. This week's adventure is brought to you by Doug, who is currently being attended to in the Critical Care Unit at Botsford. His pneumonia/fever was just not progressing, so they admitted him through the ER on Friday night. This morning they stuck a tube in his lung (yes - ow!) and immediately drained 2 liters of fluid out. Over the last few hours he has drained another liter, and it still keeps coming. Big Doc Pulmonologist stopped in later while I was there and said they want him to have another CT scan tomorrow to check that lung. He confirmed that indeed, it was "collapsing" in the lower part of his lung. He wants to make sure that it is beginning to "inflate" again. If all is well, the tube can come out and Doug can start healing. If not, the tube stays in until Monday. Big Doc P. also has a thoracic surgeon on hold, who has looked at Doug's tests & was present for the chest tube insertion, ...

Well, let's get the bad out of the way first - Doug is in a bad way. Out of the blue, he started feeling "dehydrated," then had a fever, then started getting really winded. 2 days later, diagnosed with pneumonia. The doctors did debate admitting him to the hospital, but decided to keep a close eye on him. He has reported 2 days already this week, with a third followup tomorrow. Two shots of antibiotics, one of steroids, 2 breathing treatments, and 2 prescriptions. He can't do much but walk really slowly around the house. It's quite scary, actually, when the rock of the family is all the sudden bedridden. The boys are handling it quite well; Roman was very anxious and worried for a couple days, but Charlie luckily is still in the stage where he believes everything we tell him. :)  Doug reports he's getting incrementally better, and that's all we can hope for. He's off work, trip to Germany cancelled, and his life is pretty much in limbo right now. For...