Not quite as exciting as the last one, but here it is…

This has not been a good week in the Miller household. Darrel went downhill but it wasn’t until today that he crashed.

He was actually doing okay and we had a good day yesterday all around.

We did have a doctor appointment yesterday at 1:30 and they did blood tests, as usual. We got a call last night shortly before 10:00 that his platelets were low. Well, they have been so okay.

Then we got another call about 10 minutes later that his potassium was very high and they wanted to do another blood test since sometimes there are false/positives with potassium

We went into Burien GHC at about 10 and they taxied the results to the lab since the doctor wanted them sooner rather than later.

The doctor called around 12:00 and I texted Courtney to come home, while I was talking to the doctor. He told me that the potassium levels were still quite high. That this could affect his heart to the degree that it could stop at any time.

There was a drug that he could take that might help but that the potassium level might not make a difference either. I told him Courtney and I would discuss it.

Then his nurse called to let me know that they did have the drug at Burien, if we wanted.

About that time the hospice nurse showed up. She told us that the side effect from the drug was major pooping. And for the possible short amount of time that it might help, we decided not to give it to him. We did talk to him about it before the final decision.

Soooo, he is not doing well at all. The hospice nurse said that he didn’t seem ‘imminent.’ However, with the potassium issue, nothing is known for sure. Not that anything is anyway.

I will update in the next day or so. We really don’t want drop ins at this point. Call, email, or text, please!

I should have started the soup night weeks ago. But we will see how this week goes and let you know.