Tuesday, January 06, 2009

The blog has been started to help keep friends and family members of Henry Ashcraft informed on the progress he is making at Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus, OH.

Henry was admitted to Riverside on Friday, January 2, 2008 with Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) and possible pneumonia. His lungs were filled with fluid and his body was starting to shut down. He was placed on a ventilator to assist him with breathing and given medications to start removing the fluids his body was retaining and combat any infections that may be occurring.

Today he has made some progress in that he is starting to output more fluids, however he has started to run a high fever of 102 degrees and the Doctors are trying to find the cause of the fever. His blood sugar levels are running high. His triglycerides is also running high, which is being caused by the current sedative medicine. They are in the process of switching sedative medicines to bring down the triglycride levels. The ventilator has been moved down from 100% to 40%, which is good news. The Doctors are also doing test to identify any renal failure.

Progress to recovery is going slow, however there has been improvement from when he was admitted to the hospital. How much longer to recovery is not yet known and only time will tell.