Bluniers

I guess you could say I am up before the sun...or I haven't even gone to bed ;) Looks like today is the day that we are GOING back home to our little piece of hillbilly heaven!! We are both looking forward to going home, sleeping in our own bed, seeing our dog Diesel and all of you. :) I had mentioned prior about bringing food, etc. After talking to our doctors is seems it would be best to NOT do this because of food preparation, environment, sick people in the homes etc. Its hard because I understand that it's generally an easy way of helping people out. While we appreciate  everyones giving and generous hearts its the best thing for Brent's health. For those of you that would want to still give I have thought of a couple options. If anyone has some quick recipes, recipes with common ingredients most of us may keep on hand, etc you can email them to me @ trudz83@juno.com. My other idea would be send down the dry or prepackaged ingredients with a recipe. PLEASE...by no mean...

No discharge tomorrow due to Brent not eating as much as they want him to. It's kind of a struggle because he gets nauseated so food is a turn off. He is taking nausea meds so that should help-so discharge has been bumped back another day...at least.  So the plan is eat more, drink more, walk more and get dialysis tomorrow. After all those things...we shall see what God has in store.  We were blessed with visitors this weekend, both sets of parents, Rachel & Merle. We were thankful to have some new faces around! Hope everyone had a wonderful day!

Things are going good and continue to get better daily. He has gotten dialysis the last couple days so that's helped tremendously for his swelling in his body. He is taking a break today from it. His appetite is better everyday since going off of the iv nutrition. The plan as of now is to get discharged on Monday. Again we can not express our gratitude for all the love & support everyone has shown us. We are truly blessed to have such an amazing support group. We can continue to feel the prayers of those we love so much! We hope everyone has a blessed day today in Gods house.

Well it looks like we spoke too soon. Brent won't be discharged until next week sometime. Because he isn't very hungry and he needs to be eating regularly before the doctors send him home. They are changing all of his meds to oral today so that's another step in the right direction! Baby steps in the right direction is better than no steps at all :) hope everyone has a great day!

Yes our future is looking bright!!! Brent's pain is under control- for the most part. He started eating real food today so if he continues to be able to tolerate it the doctors will discontinue his iv nutrition tomorrow. He is getting dialysis everyday this week and as we speak he is hooked up- getting his oil changed as he would say ;) today they are pulling off 3 liters and yesterday they pulled off 4 liters!  The doctors have told us that their plan is to discharge him on Friday. So as exciting as that sounds...we aren't getting our hopes up to high...just in case. We have learned that ANYTHING can happen.  Things are going to be a little more hectic this time coming home. We will have home care nurses coming in to help us with this transition. I know there are some of you that would like to help out in any way. At this time we welcome any dishes that we can prepare at our convenience. FYI: He is allergic to any kind of melons. If anyone has questions feel free to email me ...

Good morning. Because Brent was having the distention in his abdomen area the doctors decided to do a CT scan. The results came back with out any alarms- which is wonderful! So because it was normal they are going to possibly let him eat today! Yeah- one more step in the right direction! He had dialysis late last night ( 7:30-11:30) and they pulled off 3.6 liters. Their plan is to do dialysis everyday this week to try and get his fluid down as much as possible. We have been doing some changing of his pain medications, seems like one wasn't working well and another was giving him night terrors. So hopefully we have that ironed out for now. It seems with things going the way they are it gives us a glimmer of hope that we will be going home sooner than later. We still have some obstacles to get through but the light it getting somewhat brighter at the end of the tunnel! Again thanks a million for all the cards, words of encouragement, emails, texts and especially your prayer...

Happy Father's Day to Brent.(...we do have a little dog who is like a kid some days but most days he is Brent & I's second best friend-next to each other ;) Also happy Father's Day to our dad's- we love you both unconditionally. Thanks for love you have shown us thought the years. We were blessed with visitors today. Rog, Wendy, Duane, Eileen, Crystal & Kayla all came to visit today. We both really enjoyed it! Brent's doing about the same today. The air & fluid in his stomach is a little more than it was yesterday. It probably makes some of you wonder why and what will they do about it. There are a few options that we have but right now it's the waiting game to see what his body will do with the excess. He didn't have dialysis because the dialysis center is closed on Sundays except for emergent cases. He did get up and walk the halls a couple times today. He was also able to sit up in the chair so I could give him a haircut!! After that he...

Well we have some interesting news...Last evening or rather early this morning we were moved to another room out of the ICU. The room was like the one we were in prior to Brent having his lung transplant. Compared to where we r usually it is very small-smaller than the icu rooms even. Our understanding has been that whenever we come in to be admitted we a sent to the lung and heart transplant floor which is 5 tower. Needless to say we got a rude awakening as to how spoiled we really are when we usually come in and we go to " the 5 tower". To our comfort the doctors had a call in this morning first thing to get us moved to the tower. we were moved up here around noon. This experience gives us a whole new appreciation for our rooms here. It's good for us to take a step back and look what our expectations are and why in multiple areas of our life. The doctors took his NG tube out this morning prior to moving rooms so that MADE Brent's day along with Rachel coming up t...

Good afternoon! Hope you have been having a good week! Brent is feeling much better since this Having his colon removed. He is still on IV nutrition and his NG tube hasn't been taken out yet either. He has been up and walking the icu unit the last few days. They are currently waiting for a bed to open up on the transplant unit (where we generally go). They are talking about starting him on liquids here in the next few days as well in hopes to stop the iv nutrition and take the ng tube out. He has been pretty sore from his incision which is to be expected. He has also been getting dialysis daily for 4 hours and they pull off 2-3 liters each time. Well tell everyone a big hello. I am doing pretty good-kinda bummed we aren't heading to Florida today but SO thankful Brent is still alive! I will continue to keep you posted as to how things are progressing. Thanks for your love and prayers! Trudy Sent from my iPhone

Things continue to get better a little bit every day!!! We are SO thankful for this and we know its because God is hearing the prayers of all of you that we love. He is able to sleep for a period of time but never more than 30 minutes due to pain. So the doctors have added a pain patch to his pain pump treatment. So we are hoping tonight he gets a restful night. Since starting the pain patch he has been more comfortable. He is healing up well and they started hearing bowel sounds today which is awesome news since it takes 3-5 days generally for the bowels to wake up. They are talking about moving him to the lung transplant floor possibly tomorrow or Friday. He is still on iv nutrition so they are going to be working on getting back on regular food as well. Yesterday he sat up in the chair for 2 hours and walked around one of the nurses stations here in the ICU!!!! But today...he sat up in the chair for 1 hour and he walked around the entire unit 11/2 times. So it's great to...

Good morning. Things are looking up. His pain is significantly better today and is abdomen isn't distended as it was because of his colon being out. He is having some discomfort from his incision so over the night they increased his pain medications. He was able to get a restful night sleep. This morning they are doing dialysis for 2 1/2 hours and they are pulling off 2.5 liters. He did get dialysis last evening as well which I am sure helped him have a restful night sleep. They did give him a unit of blood this morning which is just a result of having surgery for him. Over all he is doing much better. We are still in the ICU. Physical therapy will be in today to work with him to get him in a chair. Also in the next day or two they want to start him on a liquid diet, he has been on iv nutrition for about 9 days. So we are starting to see the slightest light at the end of the tunnel. We still have a lot of work to do between now and getting back to where we were prior to coming her...

Brent is out of surgery but still in recovery. Surgery went well with no complications. They did pull off 3-4 liters of fluid again out of his abdomen. We should be able to see him in a couple hours or so. When Dr Wright came out to talk to us anesthesia was getting ready to pull the intubation tube out. I knew it was a good sign when Dr. Wright come out with a smile on his face! Thank you, thank you, thank you for all the prayers!! Its overwhelming to see God's miracles over and over again! We are TRULY blessed!

Well yesterday Brent's stomach was distended again as much as it was prior to dialysis on Saturday. Nothing changed as far as treatment for him yesterday. He just tried to keep up on his pain pump and used iced packs to help with his pain. We were glad to have our family up over the weekend to spend time with us. Because his pain and distention wasn't getting better they decided to get a CT scan of his lungs,abdomen and pelvis. The results showed that the colon was still inflamed quite a bit but the surgeons didn't come in to see him until after we left at 11 pm last night. This morning when the surgeons came in they said that the antibiotics that they have been flushing have not been getting to his entire colon because it was so inflamed/swollen. So needless to say his colon isn't getting better. Due to this they have made the decision to go in and take out his colon. They did say that months down the road they will be able to reconnect him so that he will not have ...

As I told my mom this morning...you know you have been at the hospital too long when you can give other visitors directions to get around! :) Things have been going about the same over all. So negative first then the good!.... His abdomen is more distended and firm this morning than it has been. We are kinda bummed about this because it makes him more miserable and it's suppose to be going down not increasing. It is to be expected because he had surgery and he is retaining a lot of fluid otherwise in his body but its just kinda discouraging. Kinda like 2 steps forward and one step back. He is healing good on then outside as far as his surgery goes. They did increase his pain meds just a touch to help his back pain due to laying in bed for a week now, which has helped. They are also starting a lasix drip to help with his fluid retention as well as dialysis. The surgeon team replaced his NG tube on thurs night because it was getting plugged and not working right. So that is final...

Brent's day has been pretty uneventful. We are thankful for this as this is the first day. The surgeon did come in this morning and worked with his tube that goes down his throat to his stomach so we are SOoOo thankful for this! Between that tube working properly and his pain meds managing his pain he has been sleeping comfortably all day. A couple things that are slowing this down are the swelling he is still having in his abdomen and the fact that he is stiff from laying on his back for 5 days makes it harder for him to getup and move around much. Physical therapy has been coming in to work with him o he has been able to sit in a chair for about an hr the last couple days. We are looking forward to having our siblings come up this weekend. Pease continue to pray for healing. Love To All we can truly feel the prays from those we love!!

My general procedure is to call Brent as soon as I get up each morning to see how his night was and to give him an idea of when I will be at the hospital. This morning when I called he sounded pretty miserable. When I asked him he said he slept good through the night until about 6 when he started feeling discomfort again in his abdomen. When I got up here to the room his stomach was distended again- not quite as much as it was prior to surgery but it was still pretty puffed up. Dr. Wright-his surgeon that did this procedure for him and as Brent told him THE BEST (which we all agreed on!!)- came in to see him because of the symptoms he was having. He told us this distention was common because things are pretty angry inside of him still and also because of the c. Diff infection in the colon. He had told us this was possible to happen again given the infection. While he was up here he placed a small tube into his sm. intestine to release any air that may be in there. His nasal tube was...

Brent got our about 45 min ago. He is doing well. They were able to do the "loop" colostomy procedure ( which I explained in the last post) there was a chance they would do a total colostomy. So we are thankful they didn't have to do a total!They were able take to breathing tube out and he is recovering well. He will be on a morphine hand pump because they had to make a laparoscopic incision bigger and it's in the middle of his stomach so it will be more painful. When they went in they pulled off 3 1/2 to 4 liters of fluid out of his abdominal cavity, so he should be feeling better from that! The surgeons are still going to keep a close eye on him to make sure he heals up well. He might be slow healing due to the amount of steroids that he is on. It sounds like he has a long road of recovery ahead of him with his kidneys and the healing from this procedure. Thanks again for all the prayers! We can defiantly feel them! This morning when I woke up I was laying in bed ...

Brent night went better. They put a tube down to his stomach to relieve some gas/liquid from his intestines. Because of this he was able to sleep descent last night. They have put his dialysis catheter in this morning and the plan is to start that in the next 24 hrs. The surgeons have been in and they plan to do surgery in the next hour or so. It's a fairly new procedure as the surgeon has only done 3 so far. Please pray that God will guide their hands and the procedure. Generally when this type of thing happens they remove the whole large intestine and put a perminant colostomy bag in. The procedure they are going to do is called the "loop" colostomy. what this means is bring a piece of the small intestine to his abdominal wall, cut the intestine 3/4 of the way around,it will look like a double barrel shoot gun kinda on the outside, their will be a tube placed in one hole that goes to the large intestine/colon to irrigate his colon with antibiotics for the c. Diff and t...

Well his stomach is still distended and uncomfortable. According to the doctors the distention is fluid in his abdominal cavity. The exams on the abdomen that the doctors do are not painful like they were the first day so this is a great sign as well that the inf. is getting better. He is still not producing much urine even after 80mg of lasix so they will start dialysis in the morning. At this time they are going to give him his antibiotics via enema in addition to iv and oral in hopes that they can get it to the direct area where it is needed. By doing this they are hoping the abdominal distention will go down. Surgery is still on the doctors minds but we are holding off praying the antibiotics will take care of this without having to do an invasive procedure with all the risks that re involved with it. Otherwise everything else is the same still in the ICU where there is a doctor here 24/7. Please pray for him as its getting frustrating for him that things are looking better at a c...

Today is a new day :) Brent is doing about the same this morning. His blood pressure is doing great. His stomach is distended again today but they have been giving him a drink to lower his potassium which may or may not contribute to what is going on. It has brought his potassium down into the normal range so for now they have discontinued it. His pain is still there but he says its more of an ache than sharp in his stomach area. They did do a stomach X-ray to look at what is going on. He has been taking morphine when the pain gets unbearable. The surgery is still on hold unless his pain gets worse or his blood pressure doesn't stay stable. His white counts are high so they are concerned about what may be going on in his colon even though his signs and symptoms are getting better. His kidneys are not working any better than they were so they are going to give him a high dose of lasix. If that doesn't make him produce urine then they will most likely start dialysis. In the next ...

Well today brought us positive improvements. I don't think at this point it is safe to say he is out of the woods but any improvement is encouraging. As of noon today we had been told that they were going to take him in to do the colon surgery but that they weren't going to do it until later today or tonight. BUT they were able to wean him off of the medication the increases his blood pressure so they are holding off on surgery. He is holding his own without the medication at this time. It has currently been 3 hrs without it and his b/p has actually increased to where it normally is at home. This brings all of us a sense of ease. So currently surgery is cancelled BUT if things would take a turn for the worse and he has to go back on the medication for his b/p then they will do surgery ASAP. Since we have been here they have given him a total of 13 liters of fluids. Needless to say he was extremely dehydrated. He is producing a touch more urine, which means his kidneys ar...

Not much new since late last night. He is still pretty uncomfortable from his colon inflammation. According to the doctors he is doing a touch better but he is still not out of the woods. There is still a possibility that he could have surgery on his colon if things don't keep getting better. We should have a better idea in the next 48 hours. We are thankful to have our family here with us. Thanks so much for your continued prayers.

Since our last visit up to Loyola Brent has been on a prednisone taper. That means his immune system has been nocked down even lower than what it generally is on his regular post transplant medications. This brings me to our current situation. Brent has been having diarrhea, fevers, stomach pain and some shortness of breath for the past 2-3 days. We decided to head to Chicago this morning to see what was going on. In the ER they did lots of blood work, a stool sample, and an abdominal CT. They gave him 5 liters of fluid because he was extremely dehydrated. His blood pressure was also pretty low when we go here at 66/44. The idea was that the fluids would rehydrate him and his blood pressure would rise back to normal as well. Well he was slightly rehydrated and his blood pressure didn't go up. They moved him up to medical ICU because his blood pressure was not rising like they wanted/expected it to. They started an arterial line to keep a closer eye on his blood pressure, an iv in b...