Karyn in the hospital ...

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone,

Just a quick note to let everyone know that Karyn is in Indiana

University hospital. This time, it is not directly panc related.

She'd been complaining of just not feeling well for the past several

days, but was not able to " put her finger on the place that hurts " ,

and the medical staff always requests. She decided she must just

have something like the flu, and since she wasn't running a fever,

thought she could manage ok at home. I stopped over to check on her

THursday evening, and she seemed a little " dazed " and confused. I

called her Friday morning, she said she had fallen sometime during

the night, but seemed ok. I called a number of her friends and

asked them to take turns calling her during the day of Friday every

hour or 2, just to make sure she was still ok. One of them called me

at work about 4pm on Friday and said she thought Karyn needed to be

seen by a doctor. She was again acting confused, lethargic, and was

complaining of a severe headache. I met them at the " after hours

clinic " , but they took one look and decided to send her to the ER.

They drew blood work, took chest xrays, and did a CAT scan of her

head. THey have decided she has pyelonephritis (sp?), a big word

meaning a severe kidney infection. They decided to admit her, and

started her on a round of IV antibiotics.

As I'm sure many of you have experienced, they are quite reluctant to

give her the same pain management regimine in the hospital that she

is used to at home. She had no Duragesic patches on her when she

presented to the ER, so they are assuming she doesn't really need

them. But she finally did get to talk to the " attending " who is

covering for her GP, and he has finally written orders for most of

her regular pain meds. Took them most of the afternoon today to get

that together, but as of 6pm tonight, she is back on her normal

regimine, and is resting fairly comfortably.

THe kidney infection is a scary thing, esp. for a diabetic, and for

someone without a spleen (which was removed during her pancreas

surgery). We are hoping/praying that the infection is limited to her

kidneys at this point, and that the anti-biotics will take care of

it. They will take more cultures tomorros (blood and urine), and if

the infection shows no signs of abating, they will probably need to

check her spinal fluid to make sure the infection has not spread to

there. The process of having a spinal tap done is not something

Karyn really wants to have to face at this point.

Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers. I'll update her status

as I am able.

--Tull

tull@...

Assistant Moderator

Pancreatitis Association, International