August 15, 2012 Update

Dad had a mixed day today.  I woke him up at 9:00 am so he could say good-bye to Amelia and he was in good spirits and feeling fine.  About 11:30 am Dad said he was having a hard time breathing so Deb gave him the Albuterol and that seemed to help him out.  At 12:45 I am taking him to his doctors appointment and he say he feels nervous and jittery.  I suspected the Albuterol, but only because it was the only new thing he had had today.  Trevor at Dr Nichols said he sounded fine and his O2 level was at 97%.  He did draw blood to check a few things, but said he would call only if they found something abnormal and they did not call today.

Trevor also said Dad's last x-ray only showed a little fluid in both the chest cavity and abdomen, but not enough to warrant draining either one.  We see Dr Aziz next week and Trevor wants an x-ray done in a month and see him in 6 weeks.  There were no changes to Dad's medication.  We did mention to Trevor that Dad's eyesight has not improved much since he had the facial paralysis.  He recommended seeing an Opthamologist and had one of staff call and make an appointment for next week.  His pain level has been about a 2 all day and he has been awake alot more the past two days.  He is still very weak and unstable.  His sense of humor is still good, commenting tonight after putting two eye drops in his eye, that I should be a bombardier. 

He is / has been enjoying the grandkids being here and spending time with them.  He does get quiet and I assume that is primarily because his hearing is not good enough to follow the conversation, so he tunes out.  We were wondering if Dad perhaps could use the second hearing aid, so we called House Hearing Center and found out that a new one will cost about $2500, remember he lost his other one.  We then called Dr Trang and asked him if we could put a hearing aid in Dad's left ear and Dr Trang strongly recommended against it.  He feels that Dad has not recovered enough to place something in his ear at this point.

That is it for now.  Tomorrow Dr Heidari at 2:15 and Ramon stops by to draw blood.

Love to all,

Bill