AlamoPA Mailing List: Update on Joe Cook.

[Clara Cook (santa.baby]

Hi Everybody, Thought I would update you all on Joe. He got home from the hospital on

Sept. 3^rd. and we have been having home occupational and physical therapy every day

during the week. He was doing really good learning to walk again the first couple of weeks,

then all at once, he said my knee’s are getting worse, they wanted to buckle on him when

he stood up and tried to walk, plus his legs and knees were so swollen all the time. So I

started checking into the side effects of the new medications he was put on since his hip surgery.

All four of them have kind of bad side effects, but the one that was the worst was

Eliquis, a blood thinner, so a week ago this last Thurs. he took the last Eliquis in the morning

I didn’t give him one at night, I just put him on 2 baby aspirin instead of one.  You could not

believe how fast things changed for him. By Friday nite, the swelling in his legs and knees

was all gone, plus he was getting a little more energy, and when he got up to walk, his knees

were getting stronger. It blew the therapist mind, Monday when she saw him, so he started

walking really good, and getting stronger.  Last Friday night, our whole family was here. My

daughter from Florida was here, and my daughter from Okla. was here so they all got

together at our house to see Grandpa Joe. So they insisted he was to get up and show them

how he could walk. He walked across the living room and dining room with his walker with

out any help, we didn’t have to hang on to him, he walked all by himself. So everybody clapped

for him. So everything was looking great, until yesterday morning, (Sunday morning), things

changed real fast. At 4:00 in the morning, he was fine when he went to the bathroom, then

when he woke up at 8:30, it was bad. He had terrible stomach pane, thought he had to go

to the bathroom, but that was not it. He was in so much pane, and really wasn’t with it, he

wasn’t responding to me when I was talking to him, so I called my daughter, and then called

the Ambulance. So we were in the Emergency Room all day yesterday. They ran some tests

on him, and narrowed it down to 2 things. They found a stone in his gallbladder, so it could be

that or infection in his stomach from dialysis.  Late in the afternoon, they done an ultrasound

on his gallbladder, and found out it was okay, so he has infection in his stomach from dialysis.

He was so out of it, you couldn’t hardly get him to open his eyes and he could not talk.

The dialysis Dr. came in and talked to me, he wanted to warn me that Joe was a very sick man,

and that he was right on the edge, that he could go either way, so it was a real touch

and go situation for a while, and it might take 24 hrs.before we know what will happen.

So I kept trying to talk to him, and tried to get him to respond to me, but he was really bad,

so they finally moved him up to ICU, around 5:30 yesterday afternoon. So after they got him settled in, they called me in, so I started working with him, trying to get him to wake up a little and talk a little bit, so finally he started coming around, very confused, but doing a little better, so by the time I left, he had improved quit a little, being more himself. So I think he had got passed the worse part.  Today, he was a lot more himself, still a little confused and had a very sore stomach. I had ask the Dr. yesterday, if he makes it, about how long did he think it would take him to get healed up from this type of infection, he said probably 4 or 5

days, so I am praying that he will be able to come home by this weekend. Just another

set back, which he has had ever since he fell and broke his hip on June 26^th. It has been a

terrible year for us.  We will be glad when 2020 is over with.

So we can use a lot of prayers, just praying that this is the end of the set backs, and that

when he gets home from the hospital this time, that is the end of hospitals for a long time.

He is still very depressed and wants to die, he told me today, why don’t I let him die, I just

keep telling him you are not going to die, that you have a lot to live for. We have a new

little 6 week old great Grandson, and Joe has got to hold him and feed him a few times.

So I keep telling him that you can’t die yet, because your little new great grandson wants

to get to know his great Grandpa Joe. I keep trying to encourage him to get a positive

attitude, but that is really hard to due sometimes.

Again, thank you to all of our Paradise family for all your prayers, calls, cards, emails and

concerns.

That really means a lot to us.

 

Thank you again,  Clara

 

 

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