Dad's bad day

    When I went to visit Dad yesterday afternoon, he was fairly cheerful and feeling all right except that his belly was uncomfortable and he couldn't stop burping. Eventually he started coughing a bit and breathing fast. The nurse came by to check his blood sugar but was concerned about his breathing, especially when she wanted to listen to it with a stethoscope and asked him to breathe deeply and he couldn't.
    Then ensued a Marx Brothers stateroom scene: every medical professional in South Carolina piled into the room, mostly bringing equipment as well. Oxygen, chest X-rays, the whole deal. A deputy hospital administrator turned up as well. A cynic would say that somebody told them who Dr. Dantzler is. (Dr. Dantzler ran the Department of Health & Environmental Control for about 40 years.) But they're a good bunch up there and I really think they would have done this for anybody.
    Regardless, brother William arrived and slightly later Dad's fiancee Margaret did. We were stuck out in the corridor. The administrator told us Dad was being moved to the Intermediate ICU because he needed a little more care than they could give on the 6th floor. However, the new room needed to be cleaned so it would be about a half hour. (Note to hospital administrators: don't give specific times, because when the half hour turns into an hour, anxiety proliferates.)
    We were stuck in the ICU waiting area, a cell phone dead zone, for nearly an hour. I had already called our siblings in Boston and now couldn't get in touch, so was heading for the elevators to find somewhere I could phone out again when I met the same staffer who had led us down to the waiting area in the first place. She said Dad was in his new room, so we went. They weren't ready for us yet, so we got to hang out in another corridor. However, cell phone coverage returned, so I got to talk to all siblings not present.
    When we got to see Dad finally, we were pleased that he looked good and was holding up as well as could be expected. His speech behind the oxygen mask was hard to understand, though, which was maybe a bit worrying. I ran home to eat a bit and to pick up some food for Margaret at Lizard's Thicket. When I got back, William left, presumably also for food. As on the previous two days, Dad had low blood sugar, so they gave him juice and then dextrose and got it back up. The staffers were all really great. I had missed the doctor, but apparently all he said was they didn't know what the problem was.
    I left at about 10. My sister Anne (a doctor in Boston) was able to reach the nurse (Hillary) and got the story. The chest X-ray had shown something in both lungs, but they didn't know if it was pneumonia or something he'd inhaled or something else. Given the burping followed by coughing, one would think it would be the aspiration.(The fact that they aren't giving him antibiotics indicates that they don't much think that it's pneumonia.)
    Regardless, a respiratory therapist came by why I was still there and gave him a bronchial dilator, and that apparently helped a lot. By the time Anne talked to Dad, she could actually hear him over the phone, whereas I hadn't been able to hear him putting my ear by his mouth. So things were much improved as of last night at bedtime. The respiratory therapist said they were going to do the dilator again every few hours. She suggested he might not need the oxygen anymore by morning. Anyway, continued improvements are expected, and I'm looking forward to seeing him as soon as I can get over there.