Marshall Jones’ MRSA Story

Rough day today.

4 hours of dialysis, removed 4 liters of fluid. Dr. Morgan changed the dialysis order to every other day. Marshall loves dialysis. This cracks up the dialysis techs everytime. They say that NO ONE loves dialysis, but Marshall always says Hooray when they come, because he says it makes him feel better. I hope he brightens their day a little. I think we all need a round of dialysis every so often to mechanically clean our blood! It would probably do us all some good.

Marshall had Vicodin this morning, and it lasted him all day long. He is in a bad mood, has a bad attitude. Probably coming off the 2 weeks of Morphine.

Crappy day nurse, Karen, is too busy to take care of Marshall. Is just letting him lie in his stool. Dr. Daftarian ordered a stool sample, so I called her in when the time came, and she brought her little jar, filled it up, and told me that it would be at least an hour before she could come back to clean him up. I took over that job from here on out. In fact, I took over most of the nursing care from this point on. Marshall has a fever of 101 today. Dr. D thinks there might be a clue in his stools. Dr. Morgan is going to change his catheter tomorrow, in case there is infection forming there.

Marshall won’t eat. He has lost a bunch of weight (opposite of the Michelin Man now!), I don’t know how much, but I am worried about his eating, he hasn’t eaten hardly anything since coming off the ventilator (and feeding tube). His blood sugar is low now.

Pastor Bockleman, Dr. Daftarian, and CB all talk to Marshall about eating, and he just is so agreeable with them. Then the food comes, and I have to fight for every bite he takes. I cannot believe that after all that we have been through, we are fighting about him NOT eating. I never thought in a million years that we would fight over this!!!

He is giving the Physical Therapists a very hard time. He is so weak, he can hardly lift his leg up.