Bill Green Updates

Hello everyone…today was a hard day….as was yesterday as we come back to Tennessee to Bill and Martha’s home. To see his chair he sat in out in the garage as he waved to everyone who passed, to his paint-splattered shoes that he wore as he worked tirelessly on Austin’s swingset. Ahhhhhha…even now I sit here with tears streaming down my face. This is so very hard.

But we made the arragements and they are as follows if anyone is planning on attending or sending flowers….

William Edward Green Funeral

Receiving family and friends SUNDAY, August 30th 6:00p.m. – 8:00p.m. with funeral at 8:00p.m. at Mynatt’s Funeral home in Halls. Address is:     5131 E. Emory Road   Knoxville, TN 37938

Burial MONDAY, August 31st 10:45 a.m. at Highland Memorial Park at     5315 Kingston Pike   Knoxville, TN  37919 right behind Highlnd Memorial Funeral Home.

Thank you all for all your prayers for Bill. Now we as that you pray for strength as we get ready for the hardest two days coming up. Right now we feel like we are in a whirlwind and the tears come and go…Sunday and Monday will be the darkest days of our lives thus far. But God said he would never leave us nor forsake us. And through the darkest, deepest, and scariest valley’s….he is there…holding our hand.

Thank you all. I will be posting my final blog to Bill after all the dust has settled and I can gather my thoughts. But I will try to do that by the end of this coming week.

Thanks again to everyone and we love you all dearly. God bless you all.

It is with a very heavy and saddened heart that I write to tell you that Bill passed away today a little before 5 p.m. His body just could not fight anymore. Martha called me and told me to come and called Robby to do the same. I left and called my friend to keep Austin, as I didn’t want him to be there. By the time that I got there….he was already gone. If I had not dropped off Austin…I may have made it in time…but it wasn’t meant to be. But Robby did make it and he and Martha was by his side when he took his last breath’s.

He fought so very hard…he just couldn’t fight anymore. It has been such a long time for him to fight. And you know…I said yesterday in my post for everyone to keep praying and not to give up…and that is what you did….and God decided that Bill had had enough and it was time for him to come home. So thank you for all the prayers and support. I will let everyone know the arragements as soon as I get them…if anyone wants to send flowers. We are headed back to Tennessee tomorrow to make the arrangements and so forth…but I will put all info on here. I will then make a final blog as a tribute to Bill directly from me and that will be the final post. But I will leave this page up for as long as I have my website as so to remember Bill and his fight. He was an awesome man…and we already miss him terribly.

Thanks to everyone…you have been great! We love all of you!

I have been MIA….(which is Missing in action)….again. I have had a nasty little cold the past couple of days. I was feeling so bad that I sat on the couch and watched TV! Those who know me…KNOW that I NEVER do that! So needless to say… I have not been to the hospital. One to not give it to Martha or Bill or spread it to anyone else…and so I don’t pick up anything else while being under the weather.

But have been getting updates from Martha. Not much has changed…he is still just there and in and out of it. When he is awake is is either agitated or pleading for someone to help him get out. Really sad. His blood pressure has still been acting up and therefore they can’t take any fluid off of him durning dialysis…which really isn’t good…he is just as swollen as he was when all this first started.

I can’t believe it has been 60 days. It just seems like a horrible nightmare that won’t ever end. You have the good days that lift up your spirits and then you have those horrible days that make you think that you can’t go on. And it has been hard….for all of us…especially Martha. We don’t know how long that we will have to continue to do this. We have asked the doctors…but said that they don’t know….but it will be a long time. So we just ask that you pray for strength. We don’t know why things happen the way they do…and we sometimes never find out. But I strongly believe that everything happens for a reason. Everytime we have trials in our life…it is a test…not to see if we pass or fail….but what we learn from it. From the pitch black darkeness of despair…is when we have the oppurtunity to learn the most. So that is what I, personally, try to see this situation as…a learning experiece. Now what I am suppose to learn….I have no clue….but I can tell you that I have learned a lot thus far.

So please continue to pray. I know you have been doing it for a while now and it seems that it may not be doing any good….but God hears us all and will answer in HIS time….not ours. So don’t loose faith…things will be as God intends…we just need to be steadfast. So thank you’ll so much! We love you!

Till tomorrow.

Okay…so behind again. Sorry. A lot has been going on with Bill, I am in the middle of doing two different sculptures at one time, AND I am down with what seems to be a cold…YUCK.

So anyway…about Bill. He was not doing any better and his heart rate was going nutzo and after consulting with a nurologist…they decided to send him back to Greenville Memorial to be under the care of a nurologist. So they moved him to Greenville Thursday. He was still spitting up at that point and heart rate was not well. So they got him there and they went over the things that was going on. The heart, the brain, the MRSA, and his kidneys and that infection…that had now turned his urine to blood…very scary. And in case I didn’t say…they of course have him in ICU at Greenville. So they decided to run some tests…blood work, EKG, and a MRA…that tracks his arteries. They focused alot on his brain. Well, the results come back. He has a Atrial Fibrillation which means the heart’s two small upper chambers quiver instead of beating effectively. Blood isn’t pumped completely out of them, so it may pool and clot. If a piece of a blood clot  leaves the heart and becomes lodged in an artery in the brain, a stroke results. And so because he has this arrhythmia problem…it has caused him to have strokes. They thought he had only had three…come to find out….he has had five. And of course they are still saying that the last one was pretty significant. Which we knew that…but it is very apparant now. He finally woke up the day that they done the tests (Friday) and his right eye just constantly blinks. It is like he has something in it. He demeaner has changed. He seems very agitated and agressive. He has been for some reason…very agressive to me. I of course don’t take it to heart…because I know that it is not really him. But…they have him on asprin and cumiden ( i think that is how you spell it) to help keep more clots from forming. BUT….the downside…is that all of that blood thinner could very easily cause a hemmorage in his brain. But the risk of a major clot was more important to the doctors. So now we are just going from there. They are giving him meds for his kidneys and the blood they said is from the infection. And they have found that his MRSA has responded well to treatment and slowly going away. Thank goodness. So that is about it.

Thank you all for your prayers. You’ll are awesome. It is so great to know that we have such wonderful friends and family that although can’t be here with us in person….are still here for us on this nightmare rollercoaster we have called life for the past 57 days. So thank you. You help give us strength and we all thank you!

Till next time.

So sorry for my MIA…I had my show to get ready for and Bill has not been doing well at all. The doctor told us about the MRI….not good. It shows that he has had 3 strokes and the last one being very significant. He is also infected with MRSA…and he has a fungal infection in his kidney. The source of the MRSA was the central port in his neck…so the took it out and put it in on the other side of his neck. His sodium has bottomed out, so they have given him sodium…which has made him swell back HORRIBLY. His heatrate has been shooting up to like the 180’s and then bottoming back out…it even went to the 30’s…and no one knows why. And he is just laying there…no reaction…nothing. It is very disheartening.

Trying to keep that positive attitude…but sometimes it is very hard.

So that is about it. I will update tomorrow. Thanks everyone!

Well, day fifty was definitely one of those days. Bill slept…what a shocker. No results from MRI test. The regular doctors don’t work on Sundays…there is just a fill-in doctor. So hopefully we will find that out tomorrow. And we were informed that Bill has a type of MRSA infection (sorry…can’t remember the exact name). So they are giving him antibiotics for it. Hopefully we will find out more tomorrow when the real doctor comes in.

Then, in unrelated news…but just needed to vent…the transmission is going out in Robby’s truck. So it looks like we are gonna have to fund for a new transmission…grrrrrr.

So it has been a LONG rough day. BUT…..maybe tomorrow will be better…right? We shall see. Until then!

Well, I didn’t spend a lot of time at the hospital today as I am getting ready for my show on Tuesday. But Bill went to Greenville to have the MRI around 10:30 a.m. and returned to Travelers Rest around 2:30 p.m. At 7 p.m. we still hadn’t heard any results…but we talked to the doctor and he said it would probably be tomrrow morning or Monday before we found out. Bill’s sodium was really low…so they give him some sodium, which in turn made him swell…especially in his feet! He slept all day…but did come in and out more and was giving kisses and smiling and waving at the nurses. And when he was asleep…you could usually say his names and most times he would open his eyes and look at you. They are going to change the central line in his neck on Tuesday because of the bacterial infection in his blood. He is getting antibiotics. But he did start a very low grade temp before we left for the night, around 10 p.m. of 99.3. They give him Tylonol to curb it before it starts.

So that is about it. He looked better today than he has the last few days…in my opinion. So we shall see what tomorrow brings. Hopefully a step in the reight direction and maybe some answers. So till tomorrow!

Another sleepy day. Bill slept most of the day, but woke up briefly a couple of times and responded minimally to Martha. And speaking of Martha…she is feeling better. They give her some meds to take to help her and she slept well at my house last night. She was up and ready to go this morning around 7 a.m. And one good thing about Bill sleeping…if I should even say that…is that it made it a little easier on me shaving his face without him constantly itching his head or nose while I usually do it! And yep…you read that right…I shave his face. Somehow I got elected because I do a good job…even though I have never shaved a mans face before in my entire life! But I guess I do alright! He isn’t razor burnt!

Bill’s X-rays they said looked good. But they are going to send him back to Greenville tomorrow for a full body MRI with the main focus to be on his brain to see if they can find out what exactly is making him sleep and be nonresponsive. If that doesn’t show anything…then that is pretty much everything that they can do and it will be deemed a medical mystery I guess.

They also said that the central line in his neck has an infection and they are going to have to do another one and that he has a bacterial infection in his blood. And I am thinking good grief…I am ready for one of those good days again! But we have to try to be patient as hard as that is…and take it one day at a time.

But maybe we will get some answers from the MRI…I pray. But thanks everyone for your support! Till tomorrow!

Wow…what a turn of events…it has been one more day. Bill threw up twice today and they don’t know why. They are running a bunch of tests and going to do an X-ray of his stomach. Martha said he just looks bad. Then Martha had a sick headach and was sick at her stomach. She said that she felt a little better around lunch, but then went back downhill. Then around 7 p.m she started throwing up and she went to the emergency room. They give her an IV of fluids and some nausea medicine. She went fast asleep. The doctors said she was overly exhausted and needed rest. After much pleading she agreed to come home with Robby. But she didn’t get discharged until 1:30 a.m. But she did come here to get some much needed rest. As for Bill…he was stable and they hadn’t said yet why he threw up. So maybe some answers tomorrow. So that is about it. Let’s hope that both Bill AND Martha feel better tomorrow.

Today was not a good day. Bill has slept all day…literally. He hasn’t woke up for any substantial amount of time. When I come in, I took a rag and put ice water on it and put under his arm…not even a flinch. So don’t know exactly what is going on. Hopefuly we will find out more tomorrow.

Sorry so short…just nothing else to update.

Till tomorrow.

Well, Bill had another eventful day. They come in and put his talking valve back in and left it in for over 12 hours. They pulled him up in the bed and made him sit on the side of the bed. Martha said he was wobbly but did well with assistance. They worked his legs and feet. He stayed up for about 15 minutes. Which for him was like running a marathon for his body. So he was worn out…so he slept the rest of the day. But wasn’t completely out. He would respond if spoken to. Martha even called Robby today and let Bill talk to him (Robby didn’t get to hear him yesterday because he was at work) So Martha called him and Bill said..”Hey Buddy.” Robby sobbed so hard. That was the first time he head heard his Daddy talk in 45 days! So when we got there…he talked to us some…when he would wake up. Robby asked him if he thought he was pretty and Bill said “Yeah…your pretty”…we just all laughed and figured he was out of it. Then out of no where he said…”Pretty ugly” We all about died laughing! It was HILARIOUS! There were other candid things that he said…but I am trying to keep this blog “G” rated! But he was doing good. They are saying that he is doing really well. Tomorrow he has his dialysis…so I am sure that he will be tired. And OH!! I forgot…Martha June…I know you have been keeping up and I was telling Bill about everyone and thier comments…but when I said Martha June…he smiled and said, “Sweetheart”. I found that awesome! Hope you do too!

I recorded him telling everyone thank you for thier prayers so that I could add it on here, but I am going to have to edit some of it out…because his words of today was.. “Oh, well S##T.” SOOOOO…didn’t want to add that part! But as soon as I can…I will try to add…if I can. But thanks everyone! You have been great!

Till tomorrow!

Well, toady was a better day. They really hit the ground running today. Bill had his dialysis and all went well there. They put him on the T-piece and added the speaking valve. He was worn out from the dialysis…but he did talk a little. He said “Hello, Hi Lisa,  Okay Alright, and then that his privates hurt…only he used another word! They also had the bed fold just like a chair and had him sit stright up. They expected him to only sit for about 15 minutes…but he sit for an hour and a half, before finally complaining about his back hurting and then they laid him back down. Then they took the speaking valve back off and let him rest. He pretty much slept the rest of the day. But he really had a lot going on for him today and things seem to be rolling along.

So that is about it…until tomorrow!:-)

Well, it was bound to happen…today wasn’t a great day for Bill. He seemed agitated and just like he didn’t feel good. He slept on and off for most of the day and complained about “shaking”. He lifted his hands up and they were just shaking like his nerves were up or something. He kept compaining about his back and legs. He was also hot one minute and cold the next. He didn’t have a fever, his labs looked fine, and blood pressure and oxygen was fine…so we don’t really know. Me…I think it is just he was uncomfortable and irratated and just generally wasn’t feeling well…a bad day. But he did mention he had to pee and so they did thier thing and he had 300 cc’s…which you usually do 600 a day…so that was awesome! And that was just one day’s worth! So we were excited about that. They are talking about putting him back on the T-Piece again on his trach and then possibly on Tuesday have Speech Therapy come in and try the speaking valve on…how great would that be! He gets SOOOO frustrated when he tries to tell us something and we can’t understand him. So really looking forward to it. The doctor come in and said that depending on Bill, he could be in a regular room there instead of the ICU in a WEEK! That would be great! I just pray that he will push through the pain and how hard it will be in order to get better.

So that was about it…just keep him in your prayers!

And thanks for all the comments! I have read them all to the family and I did read him the recent ones today and he smiled. I know that it means a lot to him. So thanks so much everyone! You help me and my family keep up the fight everyday! You are very special…so thank you so much!

WOW! Today was a very encouraging day! Bill was awake pretty much ALL day again! He did take a nap around one and slept till about three…but other than that…he was awake. He has made some urine which is great. Can’t remember exactly how much…but it was more than normal for him here lately. He seemed to be in high spirits and wanted to know where his shoes were….he was ready to go home! hehehe! He also danced a little for us, made faces, and just was a joy today. So we were very happy. They turned down the vent on him to just minimal. Hopefully after this weekend we can start working at getting this stuff off!

So let’s pray for another good day!

Well, today has been very busy…at least for me! I didn’t get there until 4 p.m. today! WHEW! But Bill had dialysis today for 5 hours and did well. He slept through most of it, but Martha said that if you spoke to him he would open his eyes and respond…so that was good. When I got there, he was awake a smiled really big for me and Austin. He seemed in a good mood. He communicated with me well and then tired out around 7 p.m. and went to sleep. We decided to eat our dinner and let him rest. After dinner I got him to wake back up and was still awake when we left at 10 p.m. So today has been pretty good and he seems very comfortable in his new settings.

Well, it has been a crazy day…so I will update tomorrow! Have a good night!

Well day 40 ended up being a blessed day. We were very concerned on why it seemed that they were rushing Bill out of Greenville Memorial to the North Greenville L-TAC. Not that we didn’t want him to go…we just didn’t understand with him being so unresponsive. So we asked for a second opinion. They run a liver and thyroid test and all come back great. So they talked to us and we FINALLY got some answers. Basically going to L-TAC he would get better care in a smaller setting, the risk of infection would be less, the other patients are all stable..which means less comotion, they follow a day and night type schedule to help him to actually sleep at night than during the day, and they would start working with him agressively to get him better. As far as sleeping…it was basically being in ICU for so long. The ICU phsycosis was also effecting it.  So after having our questions and so forth answered…we agreed to go to L-TAC and was ready for transfer…hopeing for the best.  They transferred at 1:00 p.m. and we all followed the ambulance there. It is only a 25 minutes from my house…so it isn’t that bad of a drive. We went in to a friendly setting, we set in a comfy QUIET lobby, and when he was ready…they let us all back…including Austin. We come in to find him all cleaned up…they changed all the bandages the Greenville Memorial had on him and he looked very comfortable. Now I do need to back up and let you know that he was AWAKE and RESPONSIVE all day! Yep….all day until about 8:00 p.m. That was GREAT! That was the first day that he stayed awake in the last 40 days! He said he was excited to get out of Greenville Memorial and was ready to go! So far we are pleased with his new phase of this journey. It will be a long one…but hopefully…this is a step closer!

I will keep you posted!

Hello everyone…so sorry that there hasn’t been a update in a while….just trying to keep up with everything has become a bit of a challenge for me it seems. I was I had good news…but unfortunately I do not. Bill is still sleeping the days away and still non responsive. He was suppose to go to L-TAC last Thursday…but started running a fever and not doing well again….and so they put him BACK on the vent and called off the L-TAC. Well, he improved a little and got the vent back off to only have it put back on last night…due to being unresponsive. BUT…the doctor come in today and said that everything was still a go for him to go to L-TAC tomorrow! When we asked about the fever…he said that was no problem! So we are totally confused, upset, and just basically tired. After much thinking and conversation…we have come to the decision to get another opinion. It just doesn’t seem that his group of doctors are doing what they need to be doing. Because he is NO beeter right noaw then he was when he first come to Greenville Memorial.

So that is where we are right now. And again…I do apologize. Between trying to keep up my house, do laundry, make lunches everyday, make dinner and run it back in forth, entertaining Austin, trying to be as supportive as possible, getting ready for Austin’s next school year, AND running my business…it has been really hectic. So please accept my apologies. I will try to keep you’ll more informed. I thought it had only been two days at the most…didn’t realize it had almost been a week! Time has really flown now it seems. Whew.

But anyways…I will let you know what happens tomorrow and see if we can get some answers. So until then…have a good day!

Well today was another sleepy day for Mr. Bill…BUT!! I have some good news! He woke up around 1 a.m. and wanted Martha, so the nurse come out and got her. She went back there and said that he was awake and smiling and just wanted to talk. Now remember…he can’t actually talk…just mouth the words with that trach in. But she asked him how he was feeling and he said better. She smiled and said “Praise the Lord!” and he lifted one finger twords the celing and pointed upward. Then he turned to his nurse and asked him if he went to church! She said he was the most alert she had ever seen him! It was awesome! So he finally got tired and so he went back to sleep and she went back to sleep. Then got up and went back to see him at 9 a.m. and he was awake and kept saying “Pee” and she asked him if he needed to pee and he shook his head yes. So the docs put in a temporary cath…and Bill peed a LITER of urine! Although that is gross to be happy about….that is AWESOME for him! I think it had been like twelve days since he did anything! So that was awesome! He is still running his fever and his bottom number on his blood pressure is still low…but he is stable and doesn’t seem to be uncomfortable…so that is good. He woke up and talked to me some and Martha…and really come to life when Austin come back to tell him goodnight! And Austin was holding his hand and he said, “Papaw…you know what? Your sexy!” I thought I was going to roll in the floor! I don’t know WHERE he got that! But it made Bill laugh…and that was good to see. That little boy is what keeps him going. So maybe he can get over this fever soon and hopefully we can find out what exactly is growing from that sample on Monday. So until tomorrow…have a great night!