08:30 – Dutch isn’t doing as well as he had been. Frances stopped over to see him on her way to work yesterday morning and said he was acting exhausted and a little confused. It was the same when I visited him around lunchtime, and when Barbara visited around dinnertime. Barbara talked to the nurse, who said his blood pressure was low, his temperature was slightly elevated at 99.8F (37.7C), his pulse ox was down to 77%, which is low enough to cause confusion in someone Dutch’s age and condition, and he’s coughing and nauseated. He’s not refusing food entirely, but he is eating much less.
I suspect pneumonia from aspiration or possibly another UTI. Dutch is still on metronidazole for the C. diff infection, but it’s very possible that whatever has infected him now, if something has, is resistant to metronidazole. Barbara and the rest of us are of course worried that this may be it. Dutch is under a DNR, but they will treat him for infections, so we’ll just have to wait and see.