Tuesday, January 15, 2013

New Year not starting out very well !!

Our New Year is not starting out very well. Dad is having these health issues. They are still working on Dads' blood clot and are still waiting to hear from the heart Doctor. Then my husband has this cough he seems to get every winter. He hasn't been to work since last week. He can't sleep upstairs in our bed. As soon as he lays back he starts coughing. He tries to sleep on the recliner. But that doesn't seem to work very well either. He hasn't had much sleep the last couple of nights. Neither have I .... I wake up hearing him coughing up a lung. He went to the Doctor and they put him on prednisone  and  is to use an inhaler. Plus he already takes allergy pills  every day . Plus his blood pressure pill and his acid reflux pill. When we had the dairy cows , all he took was acid reflux pills and a vitamin. Ever since we sold the cows , he is on all this medicine now ! I told him I am thinking of trading him in for someone younger and healthier ! LOL  ! This morning I took him to an office in State College for a chest X ray. They called and said the X ray was normal. So that is good. This afternoon they called in a prescription for a cough pill. I went and picked them up. Hopefully they work on this cough  and he gets to feeling better soon!

Monday, January 7, 2013

New Health Problems for Dad

Dad now has some new health problems to deal with. His leg was bothering him and was swollen. We took him to the Doctor and they said go to the hospital and have an ultrasound done on the leg. To check for a blood clot.  And that is what it was. He is on a blood thinner and Mom has to give him shots in the stomach. He has to have blood work done about every other day. To check for a level in the blood. They want it to be about 2 . It started out at .9  and then went up to 1.6 . Then it got up above 2 and that was too high. So they were to cut back on his blood thinner and quit the shots. He goes again on Wed. for blood work again.

Then last week I took them for his regular appointment for an ultrasound on the artery in his neck . This is the same artery that was blocked the other year , which caused his stroke. They did the surgery on  the artery to open it up. They do this routine ultrasound about every 6 months. The last time they did one the artery was about 59% blocked. Thursday's ultrasound showed severe blockage, maybe in the 90 - 99 %  range! They set Dad up for an CAT scan  this morning. I took them to the hospital . His appointment was at 9:30 am. They did the scan , now we wait to hear from the Doctor.To see if the ultrasound was correct and he does have blockage. Once they get the results we will  go from there. More than likely they will decide to do surgery on the artery again.  We are hoping for the best !