WOW! What A Summer for Ralph

As I had posted, he went back into a-fib. Then late yesterday he had serious GI bleeding and the nurse-line advised him to go to the ER. So off to the ER and triaged ahead of a waiting room full of people (according to the staff most without insurance and really should not be in the ER). Yes, he is in a-fib again. They reversed his blood thinners with Vitamin K and admitted him to the hospital at 12:30am this morning. With the blood thinners out of his system, the bleeding has stopped this morning. The hospitalist doctor had hoped to get the GI and cardiologist doctors talking so that something can be done instead of the run around we have been getting and doctors not talking. So far the GI doctor has been in to see him and with no communication with the cardiologist has scheduled a colonoscopy for sometime tomorrow to see if they can find the source of the bleeding. In the past the cardiologist has said no to any other procedures, so will be interesting to see what happens. The GI doctor agrees with us that cardio has not and is not working so they need to find something else and they need to manage his blood thinners differently. They are trying to manage his heart rate with a drug that has not and is still not working - it lowers his blood pressure but not his heart rate. We told the ER that it has not worked, but they continue to give it to him, so we all agree that they need to look at some other meds. So, after tomorrow we will either know what is causing the bleeding or they will find no cause and we go from there. Then once the cardiologist sees him, we may know what they will try next!