For the past month or so he’s been feeling like crap. If you’ve seen him, you probably noticed some weight loss and a bad sounding cough. Anyway, he finally went into Urgent Care at Group Health, and they started running tests. X-Rays showed “lesions” on his lungs, and an ultrasound showed acute kidney failure. Basically, the doctors were shocked he was walking and talking.
At about 7 or so Tuesday night he was taken to the Critical Care Unit at Virginia Mason. Since they don’t know what the illness in his lungs is, he was placed in an “infectious disease unit,” which means anyone who comes in contact with him had to wear a spacesuit. It’s like a big plastic head cover with a mechanized air valve that you wear around your waist, and it plugs into your head at the back of the mask. Ridiculous. It’s also really loud in the mask, because of the constant air flow, so it sounds like a vaccuum. Anyway, that part is over now, and it’s at the discretion of each doctor if they want to suit up or not.
Ok, so I realize I’m rambling, so I’m sorry in advance if this letter is a bit crazy. I think I slept one hour Tuesday night and 2 hours last night.
The first night his kidneys were so bad it was starting to affect his liver. At this point he had so much Potassium in his system, the doctor was practically congratulating him on having “the highest count he’s ever seen in a living man.” I guess he asked other doctors what the highest they’d seen is, and were having a pissing match about it. Normal people are a 1; Luke is/was a 15. (update 5/3: this number, come to find, was actually SEVENTEEN. Looks like the doc could have won even more bets).
So the first night was spent trying to get that Potassium count down, so his kidneys wouldn’t die, for lack of a better word. He has to drink this incredibly awful stuff that made him do very bad things in the toilet, which I won’t get into here, every 20 minutes or so. Then they gave him huge doses of Glucose and Insulin, which is supposed to be the killer combo for bringing down Potassium. I think he did this 4 or 5 times, which meant constant trips to the commode literally all night. They drew a LOT of blood, probably poked him 20 times, so his arm is a little swollen up. He’s had a few IV’s, and is hooked up to all the usual electrodes. Needless to say, it doesn’t make for easy movement, so getting up every 20 min? Yeah.
Finally they decided that the Potassium wasn’t going down, and needed to get all that shit out of his Kidneys. So they did a procedure where they poke two holes in his back, and insert tubes directly into his kidneys. This was a big scary ordeal, since Luke’s never had any kind of procedure done to him. Turns out it was ok. They drugged him up pretty well, and I believe there were a few painful moments, but nothing he couldn’t handle.
Quick sidenote: Evidently Luke is superman. I mean, we already knew he was Boy Wonder, but he’s got this weird ability to handle pain or something. The doctors said people in his condition shouldn’t be functioning. They’re all a little weirded out by having to do all these procedures and stuff to someone who is so “alert.” So, not only is he smart and pretty, he’s a little sub-human too ;)
Ok. What next. He had the two bags that were draining his kidneys, at a rate of 1800 cc’s per hour. This is good, as it’s draining the infection so they can find out what the hell is going on in there. That’s the lame thing. . . the problem isn’t just draining the kidneys – it’s finding out why they’re blocked to begin with. We don’t actually know the next step in regards to the kidneys, I think it includes CT Scans and injecting Dye, to see where the blockage is happening.
After the surgery he finally got to eat (a lot, it had been like 20 hours since he coudl eat), and sleep (a little, but deeply). 1 am found him chatting away, in fact more than I’ve ever heard him talk in his life, and commenting on every single thing he thought of or looked at. It was pretty cute.
Once they got his kidneys off the brink of failure, it was time to look at his lungs. Today they did a. . . bronchiascomy? Bronchioscopy? Anyway, they shoved a long ass tube up his nose and into his lungs. It had a camera on the end so they could take pictures. They also inject water into the lungs and suck it back out again. Hmm, sounds like drowning. So yeah, I basically got to watch Luke drown for a good five minutes, and I thought he was going to die, but as soon as they (finally, Jesus) pulled the tube out, the first thing he said once he could speak was, “That wasn’t so bad.” I don’t know, guys, I’m pretty sure I’d be a sobbing mess asking for my mommy, but whatever.
They will be able to take the water that they put in and sucked out, and run tests to see what the lesions are on his lungs. Evidently there’s one about the size of a golf ball, and a whole mess of little ones. There’s also one on his bladder. Evidently this is 4 inches long. They should know today whether it’s an infection, otherwise he will have to have it biopsied.
We honestly have absolutely no idea what is going on. The doctors are a little stumped how a perfectly healthy 33 year old goes from normal to organ failure in just a few days (essentially). But there is an AMAZING team of doctors working on it, and it’s really obvious they care about what’s going on and want to solve the mystery (it’s a lot like House), so I’m confident that he’s going to get better soon. As far as long term, we just don’t know. Worse case scenario for the kidneys is a kidney transplant or dialysis. WORST CASE. Let’s hope for “It’s an infection, hey look it’s cleared up!”
The lungs? We just don’t know. They should be getting labs back in 24-72 hours. God, I know it feels like forever, and it kind of is. Luke just wants to get the hell out of that hospital, and home to you guys. We’re both very grateful for the outpouring of love coming from all of you. We’ll have some kind of “Luke is better” party or something after all this. Let’s just send positive hippy rays right now that he recovers, and quickly.
I’ll let you all know more as I know it. Thanks guys.
xoxo
[...] blog is one year old today, which means it was one year ago today that Luke went into the hospital. I just can’t believe what a year can bring. One year [...]