Friday

Today was another rough day for the Craiger.  He has no appetite and it's hard to keep up blood sugars with no food going in.  We finally convinced the doctors to just let him get the extra D50 dextrose to keep up his blood sugars so he doesn't have to worry about eating.  They want him to take in food obviously for the nutrients but today he really doesn't care.  He feels lousy, his whole abdomen is bloated and is under a lot of pressure.  He has pain on the right side of his liver where the procedure took place, his neck is hurting from laying in bed, and he is really sick of being in the hospital.  I got up there about 8:30 am and I didn't have much luck in cheering him up.  I just said "I'm sorry" a lot.  I feel so responsible for his well-being and feel protective of him.  I don't want him to suffer and feel like I'm betraying him if we do more than we agreed to do.  I know we just need to be patient and let the beads do their thing but we're not too patient after almost 3 weeks in the hospital.  We were hoping we'd see some results today with the blood sugars going up but he hovered around 100 or down to 60 most of the day even with 4 different boosts of glucose in addition to the constant D25 drip.  His uric acid is up as well as his potassium.  Both signs of tumors dying but both enzymes can cause problems.  Uric acid causes gout and kidney stones; both of which he's had and doesn't want to have again.  Potassium can be toxic in high levels and cause a heart attack.  His levels are not as high as they were last year so we think it will be ok but the doctors here are being cautious and limiting his potassium intake which limits foods available to him.  Chase has been up here most of the day too and is staying with him tonight so he can make sure he has a better night and keep him happier.  So thankful for our great kids.  Hopefully tomorrow is a better day.