Requesting Prayers for a Friend on Life Support

[SewTexas]

Sending prayers Skiprr

[twomillenium]

Praying for healing and for his family's strength.

[Steamboat]

Prayers sent.

[stash]

Prayers sent for your friend.

[RPBrown]

Prayers for your friend have been sent to the great healer.

[Skiprr]

Many, many thanks for your continued thoughts and prayers.

The whole situation is a nightmare. Literally. It seems like a complete fiction. You couldn't fabricate this series of events if you tried, and if you did no one would believe it could happen in a modern hospital. Makes you terrified of even considering surgery.

This guy has been a man's-man all his life. He manages marina operations, has in the Caribbean and in multiple locations in the States. He's always worked sun-up to past sundown with indefatigable energy, and much of it hard, heavy, physical work. He was a very fit 6'2" 210. The kind of guy whose personality and physical presence filled any room he walked into. He was making wisecracks and laughing when he was admitted to the hospital and went in for prep. In his surgical gown, with a wink and a grin, he even threatened to flash the nurses.

He had no symptoms going in. None. He took no medications; his BP, cholesterol, and blood sugar were always normal.

The tiny, non-malignant mass was discovered during a routine x-ray after a mainsail boom had smacked him in the back on a small boat. He had no significant pain in his back's thoracic area after the hit; a medical check was protocol. Pulmonologist recommended, logically, removing the mass before it grew or became malignant. Simple. Minimally invasive surgery; no chest-spread, in through the ribs. Three days in the hospital, max.

The surgery was at noon on March 9. It's day 15, and things now look more bleak than ever.

The paralytic drug I mentioned was a one-day thing, not ongoing. They decided it was again time time to remove the chest tube. When they did, he went into a-fib. Determining there was still an unidentified leak, they had to put the chest tube back in. This was yesterday, and he went into fibrillation at least three more times.

Last night, his heart rate began to increase, his blood pressure sank, and his low-grade fever grew to 103. He now has widespread MRSA infection, he's in sepsis.

Lead Doc still thinks it can be beat, but giving no odds. Recovery, if the Lord grants it, is now at weeks or even months, not days.

This is a highly respected hospital operated by one of the country's best medical university systems. I will not mention it's name because I go under it's knife next month. And, yes, I am now afraid.

How does this happen? How do more MRSA hospital patients die every year than the total of all gun-death homicide victims, including gang and illegal activity, and the liberals ignore it? Hey, Bloomberg and Soros and Mom's Demand Everything, you watching?

Clean up the hospitals. Lysol can save more lives than gun control legislation.

[Skiprr]

Your prayers are helping. Thank you.

His fever was controlled yesterday, and seemingly the sepsis is under control, as well. He's still sedated, intubated, and on the ventilator, of course, but last night and this morning was the most peaceful his body has been since they first tried to remove the chest tube almost two weeks ago. We're all taking that as a good sign of the beginnings of improvement.

[Jusme]

Your prayers are helping. Thank you.

His fever was controlled yesterday, and seemingly the sepsis is under control, as well. He's still sedated, intubated, and on the ventilator, of course, but last night and this morning was the most peaceful his body has been since they first tried to remove the chest tube almost two weeks ago. We're all taking that as a good sign of the beginnings of improvement.

Continued prayers for healing.

[joe817]

Your prayers are helping. Thank you.

His fever was controlled yesterday, and seemingly the sepsis is under control, as well. He's still sedated, intubated, and on the ventilator, of course, but last night and this morning was the most peaceful his body has been since they first tried to remove the chest tube almost two weeks ago. We're all taking that as a good sign of the beginnings of improvement.

Continued prayers for healing.

Same here. Praying everyday for your friend. I've been down that road with both of my parents and my FIL. It's a rollercoaster to be sure. Praying for wisdom, strength & courage for his family as well.

[Mick22]

Prayers sent.

[parabelum]

Sorry for jumping in late. Prayers sent for your friend and his family.

It's a terrible ordeal. My ex-mother in law had a similar thing happen to her here in the Fort Worth hospital.

Minor surgical procedure performed to correct a gastrointestinal issue she was having.
Ended up with MRSA infection that spread like a wildfire.

She ended up in medically induced coma for 3 weeks as they tried to pump just about every drug into her, I've never seen so many different IV bags around one person, and I've gone through Trauma/Med Surg rotation during my EMT program. Unbelievable.

She finally beat it, but that was almost 2 months later. She spent all together 5 months in the hospital (month in a rehab), and she never returned to be the same person.

In this day and age where we can get very complex surgical work done with extremely high survival rates, the fact that so many patients perish or are left debilitated after exposure to an Hospital acquired infection is unacceptable and extremely troublesome.

Will continue to pray for you friend and his family.

[dale blanker]

Please accept my sympathies for your friend's health care experience.

It is very sad that the number of problems that we hear about in hospitals seem to be growing in number and severity. Maybe the risk/problem has always been in hospitals but reporting is better now(?). Or maybe this just a part of evolution. Hospital inefficiency does not seem the likely cause because we are better experienced, smarter, have better tools, and everything should be much better organized with the technology of today.

Back in the 60's I worked for 2 years in experimental anesthesiology at MD Anderson while developing a patient monitoring system that would detect a patient's trend toward shock during surgery. I was always impressed with the extremely high standards of surgery and care at that hospital. I never heard about the kind of problems that seem to be occurring so frequently now.

So what in the world is going on?

[Dave2]

So what in the world is going on?

The generally accepted answer is that we've been using antibiotics "just in case" (it's hard to even find non-antibiotic soap, for example) for so long that many strains have become resistant to treatment.

[dale blanker]

So what in the world is going on?

The generally accepted answer is that we've been using antibiotics "just in case" (it's hard to even find non-antibiotic soap, for example) for so long that many strains have become resistant to treatment.

Ok, so the answer is evolution and bacteria is winning?

[Dave2]

So what in the world is going on?

The generally accepted answer is that we've been using antibiotics "just in case" (it's hard to even find non-antibiotic soap, for example) for so long that many strains have become resistant to treatment.

Ok, so the answer is evolution and bacteria is winning?

More or less, yeah. At least that's the way I understand it.