ICU

Last night didn't get much better for me or Joe.  I picked him up from dialysis and decided that since he seemed to be doing fine, the weather was bearable and I had the ambition, we would go grocery shopping.  We stopped by to pick up B.J. the Dog first for a little fresh air ride.

We made it home shortly after 7 p.m.  I carried in all the groceries, got Joe's dinner together, washed a couple of rugs that I think B.J. The dog had peeded on, vacuumed the floor, put the new waterproof mattress cover on the bed along with clean sheets and kept trying to eat my dinner.

After I made the bed, I called Joe several times and he didn't come.  Finally, I went to check on him and that's when I discovered he'd fallen out of his chair in the living room.  I finally got him up and sitting on the side of the ottoman where he stayed for the next 20 minutes.  He had such a blank look on his face, was not communicating in any way and wouldn't move.  There was NO reaction from him at all even with me yelling constantly.  I finally did get him up and helped him walk to the bedroom to tuck him into bed for the night.

About 12:15 p.m., I woke up hearing him keeping calling "dad, dad,dad".   I was sleeping on the camping mattress in the living room and I went to check on him thinking he was dreaming. He wasn't on the bed and I found him on floor totally scrambled and speaking some gibberish. He could not speak normal words.  I checked his blood sugar which was ok, his eyes were glazed, slurred words and no oxygen tube in his nose. I called the EMT's who said his blood pressure was very high which is total opposite of his normal.    He was taken to the emergency room and then very shortly to ICU. 

Joe wound up in the ER and then in ICU with hydrocephalus for a week. He had totally lost touch with reality and kept falling.

(My Facebook entry...Joe is now in ICU with doctors trying to find out what is going on. He may have hypertensive encephalopathy which as I understand it is that high blood pressure is causing swelling on the brain. It was a strange day yesterday with two falls last night and then this trip to the hospital. He has no idea where he is and speaks with some foreign gibberish when he does speak).