Prayers for J. Allen

 

Allen has been a member of AuthorsDen for many years, he told me once how long but I’ve forgotten. He’s been in a writers block since he retired 6 years ago so I hope that some of his AD friends will read this and bow their heads and pray along with all my social media friends and our friends and family.

 

August 13th he started dry heaving and for nearly 30 straight hours he just couldn’t quit. Finally out of pure exhaustion we got EMS to take him to the hospital, they said it was Covid. I had come down with it several days before. He stayed 5 days while they ran test. Kept saying they were going to do a CT scan but never did, just chest x-rays that showed dark shadows in his stomach, but they didn’t act on it. He came home for several days and he got sicker and sicker. He got his step-daughter to take him back to the ER. I’m still sick as a dog, I stayed sick for a good 3 weeks and still don’t feel good. 

 

During this time his sodium levels kept dropping to dangerous levels and he was taken back for a couple of days and was given fluids and sodium and sent back home. Then in a short few days he was just about gone and I got EMS out here again and back to the hospital he went.

 

They did all kinds of tests this time and found that his colon had died. They removed all of his colon a day or so after Helene blew through here, taking down two pecan trees and fencing on both sides of the yard, including a very large limb falling through out next door neighbors house destroying his bathroom. His side of the fence has been taken care of, but the trees are still laying down across the backyard and it took down our flag pole. I digress.

 

I forgot to mention that he had a colonoscopy done back in March or April and it was okay then. He begged the surgeon not to make it where he would have to wear a bag the rest of his life. The surgeon got the colon out and did a bypass to where he would wear a stoma bag for about 4 months and he would go back in and connect things up so the stoma would be taken away.  But his BP kept dropping dangerously low and they had to keep pumping him with fluids which caused the stoma to fill up and needed changing every 3 hours or so instead of 3 to 4 times a day depending on what he ate. He stayed a good 2 weeks and they sent him to a post acute rehab. And here's where the story really develops. His surgeon sent direct orders on how to change the stoma, how to clean between the changing and things to watch out for.  It must have hit the trash can as soon as it was taken to the nurses desk. That place did every thing they could to kill him.  Letting the stoma fill up and backflow into him. Pulling it out so far his intestines (close to 18” or so) that are hooked up to the stoma are out of  his body and exposed. Him telling them that it needed to be emptied and hopefully 4 to 5 hours later they come to clean it out. 

 

PT didn’t work out, he went two days and each day when he would do the exercise they had him do, he would leak fluid out of his navel so he was taken out of PT for the time being. This went on for 2 weeks and he was sent to the hospital twice in that time for fluids. The last day there, when they took his BP it was 40/20 and when they got to the hospital they could not find a BP even though he was talking to them. So they admit him and I had his step-mother go and clean out his room (she lives just a few miles from the rehab center) and we tell the doctors he will not go back there.

 

He stayed in the hospital this time for about 3 weeks. Every time they got him up his BP would drop and his heart rate would go sky high. They let him come home against doctors wishes and was home for a day and a half which was 10/27 and here comes the Fire Dept, EMS in two ambulances and a cop. This time I watched as he was sitting up answering questions and the fireman could not find a BP and the other one couldn’t either, EMS tried manually and couldn’t and hooked him up and got a reading but said it’s not accurate. To the hospital again and that’s where we are now. 

 

They diagnosis him with sepsis and today added MRSA and just to move his heart rate starts soaring upward. That’s supposed to be due to the dehydration as every one of these episodes come for being dehydrated. 

 

Allen still has a very long way to go and prayers are much needed for his recovery. I just want him home and well. Thank you for taking time to read and pray for Allen. Because I’m handicapped and still so weak from having Covid and stress I can not make it to the hospital. I did go once when we nearly lost him and I haven’t driven but once this year, that I hit a curb and busted my tire and it was going on midnight… so he’s told me not to try to drive again until he’s home and can come with me…

 

Jan T Wilson

© 10/29/24