21 Dec, 2007

The CRT went fairly well; the first two leads (there are three) were implanted on Monday (I probably already blogged about that, but I'm running on about 2 hours of sleep and eleventy million cups of coffee), and the third was implated last night.

We thought that I'd be able to take Rob home today, but there was a complication....his potassium level this morning was 8.1. You read right. Normal is 2.5 - 5.0, and his was up the proverbial wazoo. Now in most cases, a potassium level that high would cause serious heart problems (like he doesn't have enough, right?); miraculously, the pacemaker was already doing it's job and so the EKG was normal...thankfully. He'll be in another night at least, and probably won't be home until Monday. If the meds don't work, he'll have to have dialysis (but only one course). We also need to talk about kidney transplant.

(His blood sugars are also through the roof - 628 was the last one about an hour ago).

His potassium is coming down though....but his creatinine is at 4.0 (it was 1.8 only ten days ago), and that's a major concern too, as he's already got 50% renal failure.

Oy.

I keep smiling though...and he knows I'm with him.