Pneumonia

So I didn’t hear anything from either doctor all day today. During church tonight, I got a call from Jennifer, the nursing supervisor, saying the x-ray they did today showed Rick has right lower lobe pneumonia. She said they haven’t gotten the blood work results back yet. She asked Pascal how Rick did today. He said he ate less that 50% of his food, drank 500 cc of fluids and took his medications tonight. When the nursing home doctor got the x-ray results, she started him on Levoquin 500 mg qd x 10 day, Duonebs (a nebulizer) qid x 10 days, and Robitussin 15 ml qid x 10 days. Hopefully we caught this pneumonia early and started treatment quickly and he will get over it quickly. I spoke with Allison Ellis at church tonight. She is a nurse practitioner who works as a hospitalist at Cone in Greensboro. She said that an infection like pneumonia could cause seizures, or the seizure he had could have caused an aspiration causing the pneumonia. She also said that his weight gain (he has gained back the weight he initially lost when he moved into the nursing home) could have caused the seizure medications to not be effective and need adjusting, thus bringing on a seizure. This has helped me to understand a little better what is happening to Rick. We had just had prayer for Rick in church tonight because he wasn’t doing well. I am so thankful for my church family. I know their prayers are what is holding Rick and me up. What a blessing they are!