Ruth was in the hospital for 26 days. It started out with flu symptoms, she was vomiting every day and not wanting to eat. So on Nov. 26th we went down to the ER to check things out. They couldn't find anything besides congestive heart failure, so they admitted her. They finally decided it probably was the flu and she was just to weak to fight it off. She stayed for 5 days coming home on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. The doctor wasn't real sure about letting her come home because her CHF wasn't totally cleared up, but went ahead and released her. Sue and Leroy had came up that week to spend time with her so they brought her home from the hospital. Sue made some yummy chicken noodle soup and apple crisp that night.
She was home Thursday and Friday, then Friday night about 10:30 Ruth called and said that she was having pain on her right side. So we headed back down to the ER again, the doc thought right away that it was her gall bladder. They gave her pain medicine and about 3:00am they admitted her again. She continued to have pain for about 24hrs. After they took her off solid foods it stopped. They also found that she had pneumonia and CHF. They did lots of test and decided that it was her gall bladder that was causing the pain, but because of the pneumonia and her heart condition they would not do surgery at that time. They gave her some medicine to help her digest her food better. She hasn't had any problem with pain since.
They were trying to get her CHF and pneumonia cleared up, but it seemed that in the next week it kept getting worse, they tried a bunch of different antibiotics using 2 and 3 at a time. Then on Friday when they had her up for her walk she had a spell and and couldn't breathe very well for awhile after they got her back in bed, but later that evening she seemed to perk up and was feeling pretty good. Then Saturday morning Dec. 5th, Lil was still there from spending the night and Judy had went down so she could be there when the Doctor came in. When Judy seen her she could tell that Ruth was worse and not breathing well. She told the nurses but they didn't think at first that anything was going on. But she continued to get worse and they called they family to come down. She laboured hard with her breathing and it continued to get worse for several hours. They gave her a different diuretic and a steroid to help her lungs and it helped her, they also moved her down to ICU to watch her more closely. The doctors are not sure what caused her to fill up with fluid so quickly, they said her heart could had possibily quit beating a few beats. Joyce, Johnny, Erica and Alleah came down Saturday evening and Sunday to spend some time with Ruth.
She stayed in ICU till Tuesday evening, then they moved her to 4th flood for rehab. After she moved up there, her pneumonia and CHF continued to get better. She was in rehab for 9 days and they released her to come home on Dec. 17th. The Doc said that she would need to have around the clock care to start with till she gets stronger.
She has been home now for 11 days and seems to be doing well. Her color looks real good, and she seems to continue to get stronger. She has a doctors appointment on Jan. 4th, shes hoping he will let her stay at night by herself. The Doc did say that she will need day help to do her housework and cooking and to take care of Sonny due to her heart being so fragile, which she probably needed for a long time now.
The day she was released they let her order a steak dinner for her and who ever was taking her home..which was me!!
Ruth enjoying her meal....
Steak, baked potato, slaw, hot roll and apple pie...everything was delicious!!