Changes in Thad' s Condition

After two months of improving, it appears that Thad is now getting worse. He spent a weekend of not sleeping, becoming very child-like and stressing me out greatly. Turns out that he had two things wrong:

1) An infecton in his kidneys. Not uncommon given that he wears a cathater. In fact, that he hasn't had one before is a bit of a surprise. A few days of antibioltics cleared that up nicely.

2) Very high levels of ammonia in his blood. This was getting into his brain and causing the confusion, forgetfulness nad child-like behavior. What does this mean? Well, some oof it could be from the infection. But when you add in the sleeplessness - it means his liver is getting worse.

We were warned some time ago, that as he neared the end, this could happen. He is now taking a liquid which is helping to remove the ammonia. It is helping, but will only work for a relatively brief time. Eventually, the ammonia will be too much and he will go into a coma. Then he will die. How long do we have? I don't know. We just go one day at a tim.

Happy Bithday Thad!

We hadn't thought that this would be celebrated this year. But tomorrow (August 7) is Thad's birthday. He'll be 54. He is still going strong, still improving somewhat. He can now walk around unaided, get out of most chairs and the sofa by himself and the otr day made it down the front steps of the house without someone supporting him.

These are big improvements, but his test levels don't appear to be changing - at least we haven't been told that they are. So his liver is still failing, but maybe it has stalled (I hope) Whatever is happening, we are still taking one day at a time.