Friday, August 15th

Dave started the day off similar to yesterday, throwing up. They started the tube feedings again in order to give Dave the nutrition he requires. He is still able to order any and all the food he wants and the doctors are encouraging him to do so, but he just doesn't have much of an appetite. Dave's white blood count is the same as yesterday, 23,300. The renal (kidney) doctors were by today and said they will no longer be on Dave's case. His kidneys are working at a level that Dave can live without having dialysis, although they would ideally like to see drastic improvement in his kidney function. The x-rays of the chest and abdomen and the CT scan came back looking normal. Nothing has cultured out from the 2 catheters or all the samples they took yesterday. Dave is going down to Interventional Radiology when they can squeeze him in sometime today. IR is going to aspirate the fluid in his lower right lung and they are also going to remove the fluid that has been in his abdominal cavity for about a month. They are desperately trying to find the cause of the high WBC so they are draining these 2 areas of fluid even though they don't believe either to be the culprit. As you may remember Dave had the fluid in his lung aspirated a few weeks ago and this was extremely painful, one of two times since his hospitalization that he rated his pain at a 10. This is not supposed to be a painful procedure but they hit a nerve so he was in severe pain for 3 days. Please pray the doctors won't hit a nerve this time and that the Lord will calm Dave's fears. Dave did awesome in PT again today. Despite being tired he walked further than he did yesterday, 500 feet! He is definitely getting stronger daily, PTL!