Alaska Providence Medical Center

I have flown up to Anchorage, Alaska to be with my family by the bedside vigil for my brother, Doug.

I received a phone call from Doug's wife, my sister-in-law Rebecca, telling me that my brother's condition was even more serious and more complicated than they had thought. A spinal tap led to another MRI, and the belief that the MRSA ( a drug resistant and very, very serious form of a staph infection) has spread through his blood supply, from his lungs to his brain.

I made plans and got a ticket on Alaska Airlines late that night, for the next day. By that next day, two of my brothers, and myself joined Becky and her three children, in a bedside vigil. Our only other brother, has stayed in Douglas, an island near Juneau, to care for our mother.

By that day, Thursday, the 29th, they decided the mass in his brain was not MRSA but an unknown infection. While at first, that seemed so much better, it is not. In fact, is far, far worse. MRSA can be continued to be treated by massive doses of the best antibiotics they have in attempt to overcome it. The infection can only be treated by the use of general steroids.

At this time, he is being treated with zovirax (anti-viral), mirram (antibiotic), diflucim (for possible yeast infection), propafol (a strong, strong sedative), vacomiacin (antibiotic for the MRSA), solonemedol (steroid), and dilantin (to control the seizures).

A group of doctors are working in tandem through the primary doctor and they all agree they have never seen anyone being given so high of a dose of all of these and not crashing from the sheer magnitude of drugs. To stop the continual brain seizures, they have literally given a dose of medication that would be enough for a very large elephant..far more than 5 times larger than that which they would normal use. Attempts to lower doses have resulted in increased seizing and therefore potential damage to his brain.

The prognosis is acutely serious, if not dire, but they will continue to monitor him in the acute critical care room and every means they have to evaluate, or treat a litany of symptoms and a pattern that is not even a know response in any of the years that they have dealt with any of them.

Providence Alaska Medical Center is Alaska's largest and best, state of the art, hospital. We wear masks, gowns, and gloves each time we enter his critical care unit room, and don a complete new set of each of them, every time we have to leave and re-enter the room in tandem with continually washing our own hands before leaving the unit and throughout the hospital. The photo is of myself, of course, next to my brother in his bed. Out of respect to him and his family, I am not, of course, showing him.

My brother continues to be in a deep, induced coma and is being treated with as many drugs in the highest doses that they knew he can stand without his crashing from the amounts he is being given and that is what can only be done.

The doctor is extremely compassionate, very honest with any, and all explanations. Doug's 30 year old son, is also a doctor based in Arizona, in his last year of an extensive/intensive program as a radiologist of the highest level, trained to use equipment that they only have a in a few major medical centers and he, of course, has been given full access to view all films etc and be a part of all medical information.

We are informed on a regular basis of any changes to the regime and we watch the many monitors in the room for changes of any kind. His high fever is now under control and he is breathing closer to the range they want but still attempting to control his own breathing against the machine..which should be impossible at this level of sedation that they have never, every used before.

The doctors are very honest in telling us that they have never, ever seen a case as challenging as this, nor a patient that has needed, and tolerated such massive does of medicines and sedatives. We have a conference table meeting, yesterday, with 9 of us, and the doctor could not have been any dearer, kinder, or more open.

Without his using the word 'miracle', that is really and truly, in the deepest sense of the word, what my brother needs.

Please continue to send positive thoughts and the continuing belief that all things are possible, miracles truly do happen, and if that is not meant to be, please send my brother's wife, and his three children and their spouses, the strength to bare whatever needs to be born.

Doug's wife, Becky, continues to travel to another center where she still needs to receive dialysis for three times a week at four hours a day. She is so heartbreaking dear as she simply stands by his bedside, holding his hand, rubbing his arm, for hours at a time, sending him such, deep, deep fountains of love.

Linking Posts:


Latest Update on Praying for a Miracle
Praying for a Miracle
Two Steps Forward, one Step Back
Praying for a Miracle
Crisis
Providence Alaska Medical Center
Providence, Divine and Otherwise

Michele Bilyeu blogs With Heart and Hands as she shares a quilting journey through her life in Salem, Oregon and Douglas, Alaska and all of her AAQI Quilting. Sharing thousands of links to Free Quilt and Quilt Block Patterns and encouraging others to join in the Liberated Quilting Challenge and make or donate small art quilts to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Help us change the world, one little quilt at a time!

Crisis

Life takes unbelievable twists and turns sometimes. Things happen that are not anticipated nor ever expected....and suddenly, there you are... and you have to take the cards that you have been dealt, and deal with them.

On May 12th, I posted about my sister-in-law, Rebecca Savikko , married to my brother Dr. Douglas Savikko, of Eagle River, Alaska, and her need for the donation of an O+ positive kidney with high antibodies titers.

Ironically, it is now my brother Doug, and not my sister-in-law, Becky, who is in seriously critical condition in Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage, Alaska.

My brother has spent most of his life having horrible things happen to him and being sick on and off most of the time because as a doctor he is continual contact with every germ, and viral agent that comes in to a doctor's office, or a hospital setting.

Our lives have been so filled with accidents, near death experiences, horrendous tragedies, that it becomes so surreal that as some point, we just say prayers and get through them all and get this survivor mentality that really seems to keep all of us going.

None the less, we have had one miracle after another, we have all survived near death experiences, we have all had terrible illnesses, diseases, and disorders, we have had bizarre accidents and we just keep on ...with faith, hope, sheer inner strength, and with gratitude when we have somehow survived them.

So, when my brother was rushed to the hospital two weeks ago because he couldn't breathe, I only added a sentence or two to my previous post asking for prayers for his wife, Becky, saying that my brother needed them, as well.

Well, now he really, really, really needs them.

Doug was diagnosed two weeks ago with bilateral pneumonia. As a doctor, himself, he had been treating himself with a variety of antibiotics but wasn't getting any better. The night after his 60th birthday on June 7th, he woke Becky and told her to call for paramedics as he couldn't breathe.

The ER doctor rushed him into acute critical care and he was placed on additional antibiotics, and IV drip etc. In spite of that, his fever spiked to 104 degrees, and they had a great deal of trouble even getting that down with medications, ice blankets etc.

They came to realize it was viral, not bacterial pneumonia, which of course can't be treated with antibiotics . You can only deal with life saving measures of treating the symptoms. He was placed on a ventilator, put into a deep coma with medications, given feeding and hydration tubes....and they have just waited for any signs of improvement.

There have not been any. He has been hanging in there and the plan was to attempt to wean him from the ventilator either yesterday or today, to see what happened....and to see if he could breath one his own, at all.

He can not. The prognosis is that he will die if he is taken off of the ventilator. So, they could not remove it. ( see updates on all of this at Alaska Providence Medical Center and my last one Providence, Diving and Otherwise)

The doctors took a second lung biopsy yesterday and the culture showed MRSA... pronounced
Mersa...a very serious bacteria infection, that is extremely challenging to treat. He has been on a ventilator for 14 days. That is the limit that you are supposed to be kept on what but he is too fragile to remove it so they are waiting until Monday or Tuesday and will attempt to remove it and do a tracheotomy. A ventilator goes into your mouth and down into your lungs, a tracheotomy goes into your throat and then down along with the feeding tube.

But no matter what, he is extremely critical and his life is in danger. According to his son, who is also a doctor, his dad is in far worse condition that his mom, Becky was in 2010 when she was not expected to live. But my nephew firmly believes that his father can still come out of this with time if they can just keep him going and he doesn't get any worse, AND if they can get him off of the vent and put in a trach tube.

Reality has hit our family and we are in different stages of both coping, and crisis. Two of Doug and Becky's three children are in Anchorage now, another is flying up, and my next younger brother (and therefore Doug's brother )is flying up to help the family in any way that he can.

I am here,
(Update: I flew up to Anchorage the next day: post titled Alaska Providence Medical Center)
and all I can do is to do what I always do. I send all of the positive thought, healing energies, and prayers as I know them to be, to my brother, to his showing any sign whatsoever of improvement, and to strengthen my sister-in-law, Becky and their grown children, spouses, and tiny grandchildren for whatever may lie ahead.

I still believe in miracles and I pray of course, for healing, for a pulling back of all symptoms and a complete regeneration, and return to health. If he survives having the ventilator being removed and the surgical insert of the tracheotomy, then he may face long term care.

Yesterday, to be honest, I was told by via a phone call from one of my sister-in-laws, that he would most likely die and I was devastated. (I found out later that this was a peak crisis day for several family members and everyone was so frightened that they truly had to face this huge, huge fear. But again, we have all rallied)

I have since rallied and my faith in possibilities and miraculous healings restored. For everyone's sake, I need to maintain that place and that space in order to hold it open form him to come back into this world and out of the one he is stuck in right now.

So, I am choosing to stay with the more hopeful diagnosis, after all 6 doctors said Becky would die in 2010 and she may be in continuing bad shape, but she is still alive and fighting for a kidney transplant!!!! It is what we do and I know several other extended family relations who have also been given dire predictions and not only survived comas but are doing quite well!

And no matter what happens, is happening, my sister-in-law, Becky, (see Praying for a Miracle) still needs dialysis three times a week, four hours a day or she, too, would not survive. Please hold her in your thoughts and prayers, that she can continue to do for herself under this intense pressure of what is happening to my brother, her husband.

Thank you for your kind thoughts, words, prayers, and best wishes in advance.

Michele


Linking posts; past and current

Latest Update on Praying for a Miracle
Praying for a Miracle
Two Steps Forward, one Step Back
Praying for a Miracle
Crisis
Providence Alaska Medical Center
Providence, Divine and Otherwise
Song of the Hills and an Air Flight Medevac to Seattle
Salem to Sisters to Seattle

Michele Bilyeu blogs With Heart and Hands as she shares a quilting journey through her life in Salem, Oregon and Douglas, Alaska. Sharing thousands of links to Free Quilt and Quilt Block Patterns and encouraging others to join in the Liberated Quilting Challenge and make or donate small art quilts to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Help us change the world, one little quilt at a time!

Dementia: Is it Her? Or is it Me?

Willow turned 18 and Willow has feline dementia.

I don't even need to take her to a vet for a diagnosis.

I don't need to give her a 20 question test and see if she can answer any of them, correctly.

I asked my brother, to give my mother that test in 2002 and I wasn't sure of some of the answers, myself!

And my brother, who is a doctor, claimed that my mother was fine, and of course, she is not, but I suspect he was more than a little worried about me!

When I think about feline versus human dementia...all I have to do is watch and track a few of Willow's behaviors for the past year, and mine right along with her, and I know..that one of us is, as Betty White says 'Off Our Rockers.'

I'm the one following the cat all day long with a camera,  and pretty much letting her do almost anything she wants to do!



I mean...I really need to get a life! Willow, obviously has a heck of a good one of her very own!

I still love this old cat, dearly. Even if she has become an incredible amount of work. Like a human, cats with dementia exhibit many, if not all, of the same symptoms.

They wander through the house forgetting what they are doing and what they are looking for.

I

They suddenly stop in their tracks and zombie out for large periods of time and then suddenly movement - and they're off circling again.



Cats! Well, they are sleeping on a chair one minute,



- and using a near bathroom experience to lose continence on the carpet, the very next!

Like her human counterpoints, Willow can't remember when she ate, what she ate, if she still likes it or not and if she doesn't, when she stopped liking it and when she will suddenly start liking it again. So, she cries a lot. Make that most of the time, for food.

One minute I'm buying kitty kibble for seniors (sensitive stomach, easy on the kidneys) the next I'm giving her my own serving of roast chicken off of my plate because she refused the kibble and hadn't eaten all day long.



I've gotten into co-dependent checking behaviors. I check to see where she is, what she's doing, and if I need to put her in her litter box area, or outside...now! I find her, I grab her and rush her outside..and well, she goes back to sleep.

But, I'm trying to get her to live outside during the nice weather, anyway.

It's a lot easier than cleaning up after her if I forget that she has to go to the bathroom!



She's very even tempered and lovie with her dementia, so I think it's just the cutest thing when she takes cat naps in new places all of the time.

And yes, it was a LOT of work with my wildcrafting of plant molded cement lawn art last year. All of those wheelbarrows of cement and sand, adding the water, finding dozens of big leaves, and molding them for 24 hours before peeling saran wrap off of them, but Willow thinks this one was made just for her!



And yes, it's even more work sewing with a cat on your quilts and your sewing supplies and even on the quilt that you're working on!

But then, Willow pretty much sleeps everywhere she wants!

What 's really hard is the not sleeping part of feline dementia. When it really takes over, usually early in the morning when the sun is just rising, or late at night when dusk beckons her.



She has begun to do the sundowning dementia wandering.

The first day she wandered I searched and called for her for 3 hours. I was terribly worried since her eyesight and hearing are both failing and worried she wouldn't find her way home.

By the third day of this, I became not only a crime scene investigator but a missing person's one, as well. Well, more than that. I was the sleazy detective with the camera waiting to catch the loved one in the act.

I followed her as she went out our front door,



down our long driveway,



across our lower field,



through a double barbed wire with two electric wires fence.



Into our neighbor's property, down their long driveway by their horses, down to a scummy pond where she drank contaminated standing water laden with mosquito larvae and other bacterial tidbits.



After happy hour, she sat and stared for over 15 minutes. I swear that cat never blinked.



And did she find her way back home? You bet! And then, I just followed her, so I was fine, too!

They off she went, back the way she came. And yes, she repeated this activity twice more that day.

Our marshy walks got a bit tedious so I started my 'confine and conquer' tactics. I kept her in the house, in a separate room, with her food and kitty litter.

I begin to let her outside out but only with constant, and direct supervision, and after three days of that I gave up.

I was worn out from all of our wanderings and she was just fine, but tired of me following her around like a crazy woman.

All that talking to myself, taking photos, and endlessly saying things like....

"You'd think 15 family members with Alzheimer's or Dementia would be enough! Why do I have to have a cat with it, too????"

But then I listened to myself, talking out loud with no one else around,  and saying the same things over and over.

We're both getting older, we're both worn out and and a bit lounge-y and scrounge-y. We both forget our personal grooming and take more and more 'mental health days off' from being 'at home' too many days in a row.

And, I got to thinking in my limited amount of spare time, when we weren't busy from wandering, I love all of my Alzheimer's and dementia family members...no matter what they all said and did, or say and do, and that's been a heck of a lot worse than Willow's, or mine has been.

So, where does an 18 year old cat sleep,  and what do you allow her to do?

I'm so very sorry to admit this...but after a while - anything - and everywhere, she wants!


And the other head of household? 
He's as bad (or as Willow thinks as good) as I am.

Hope you all had a great Father's Day!

Willow sure did!


PS
My sweet Willow passed away on June 30, 2012.

 

I barely made in home from my brother's hospitalization in Anchorage, Alaska and and had not yet left for his hospitalization in Seatle, Washington.

I'd like to think that Willow waited for me. It was certainly one of those special days, when only she and I were home.

I gave her a meaning filled passing ritual as I waited her passing away with her. I placed her on a soft bed in the filtered sunlight of our patio sliding door and stayed with her, talking to her, and loving her with my whole heart and soul.  

She did not appear to be in any pain and every once in a while she looked up and connected with me, completely.

And while she died of natural causes and being 18 years old, and at home surrounded with love, it was as natural meaningful as it could possibly have been.  

It all took about 3 hours, and I used every bit of it to be one with her and the love she had given to each and every one of us in her life time. When it was time, she gave a last sigh and was gone.

The rituals and the meaning of both and death are all part of the circle oftl life. I love now that I can read this post and laugh with delight at even the last month of her life. That I can still cry at this postscript is simply a testament to love fully shared.

Love you and miss you, dear Willow.!

Michele Bilyeu blogs With Heart and Hands as she shares a quilting journey through her life in Salem, Oregon and Douglas, Alaska.

1,000 Followers: Lots of Give Aways and More!

Updates of my quilts sales/auctions etc.
$145 more for the Alzheimer's Art Quilt 

Quilt #9648 - Changing the World

sold at the AAQI June Auction for a winning bid of $90! I thank the quilt...the q key just worked some wonky magic !!!...buyer so very, very much for their bid and I do so hope you can feel the energy and the love of this special small format art quilt. So thank you so very much, Bill...aka the amazing Willy Wonky Quilts. I asked for someone to up the ante on facebook and he did. Made my heart soar. Thank you so much!!! What an appropriate home for this dear little quilt of mine!

Wonkyworld: "Changing the World" Exhibit Now on Display

And then!

9992 - Tied Together By Love 

Just sold for $55.00 to a very dear lady in Honolulu, Hawaiia...Margie.. who knows it's story and has a heart and kinship of being a sister to my dear friend, Pat, whose husband, Clay passed away this January and whose ties I am fortunate to use in my art quilts now! Read this dear story at the link above. Oh, that goodness can still come out of loss! Your donation will help so much towards Alzheimer's research funding. Bless you!

Bold Expressions

Bold Expressions: African American Quilts from the Collection of Corrine Riley the exhibit displays stunning colors and wonderfully liberating patterns unique to the American Folk Art tradition and popularized by the perhaps, better known quilters of Gee's Bend. As with the other quilts in those collections, these celebrate bold improvisational skills and modern takes on traditional quilt blocks and patterns. Many of the quilts are made from found materials of old flour sacks, jean materials and old work clothes utilizing a variety of construction techniques and quilting styles.

Bold Expressions: African American Quilts from the Collection of Corrine Rileycan be seen at the Bellevue Arts Museum June 14 - October 7, 2012

I was lucky enough on my searching to find a downloadable pdf of all of the quilts and their info: Corrine Riley's Collection of African-American Quilts.

And while no truly liberated and unique quilt should be copied or come with a pattern, the pdf gives fabulous ideas for what blocks actually appear in many of the quilts and help us to see the non traditional mindset as it evolves through both creative expression and necessity of use of the materials available at the time to these amazing quilters.

See more at the website linked below or at the exhibit, itself!

Bold Expressions: African American Quilts from the Collection of Corrine Rileycan be seen at the Bellevue Arts Museum June 14 - October 7, 2012

Makes you want to cut up some old clothes, doesn't it. But then, if you have been previously inspired by other such exhibits, as I have been by the Gee's Bend quilters..you might be running out of old clothes! Beautiful visual delights no matter what!


Michele Bilyeu blogs With Heart and Hands as she shares a quilting journey through her life in Salem, Oregon and Douglas, Alaska. Sharing thousands of links to Free Quilt and Quilt Block Patterns and encouraging others to join in the Liberated Quilting Challenge and make or donate small art quilts to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI) Help us change the world, one little quilt at a time!