As many of you know, Dad has scleroderma which is a progressive, noncurable autoimmune disorder that causes an increased production of collagen causing a hardening and tightening of the skin. He was diagnosed over 15 years ago, but the disease has started to affect his lungs resulting in labored breathing and fluid accumulation. Last year, he had drainage tubes inserted into the pleural space of his lungs to help alleviate some of the fluid that was building up. Deborah has been draining them about every other day. He is now getting supplemental oxygen which brings him some relief. His appetite is poor and his body is likely not absorbing the nutrients he is able to consume, so he has lost a lot of weight. This past Friday, he was admitted to the hospital with suspected pneumonia. He was also anemic, so they gave him some blood and started him on antibiotics for the pneumonia. While he was in the hospital they ran some tests on the accumulated lung fluid and found that he has an extremely rare bacterial infection called nocardia that is infecting his lungs. This would not be good news for a healthy individual, so it was really bad news for my Dad since he is so immunocompromised. Nocardiosis is very difficult to treat and the risk of serious side effects led us to decide not to pursue the long course of antibiotic therapy. Other aggressive measures were discussed with his physicians and Dad and Deborah decided that these would just decrease his quality of life rather than make anything better in the long run. The physicians agreed with us and on Monday night he was discharged home.
All of our immediate family are home in Copley and we decided to proceed with hospice care. We met with a hospice administrative nurse today and should meet his primary hospice caregiver within a few days.
Thank you to all of you for your calls, prayers and well wishes. We will be posting periodic updates on Dad's health. Please feel free to provide a comment on the blog. Certainly these will be shared with Dad.
Tracy
