My 65 year-old mother was ill for weeks with severe diarrhea and then lost her appetite altogether. She also has severe spinal stenosis that causes agonizing nerve pain all the time, and so we weren't entirely sure what was wrong with her for a while. She had seen her doctor last year for chronic diarrhea, and he told her it was due to irritable bowel syndrome.
In any case, we took her to an ER about a week and a half ago. She weighed in at 86 pounds. (She is 5'4".) They took blood and stool samples and said she had no infection and to call her doctor for a routine visit. My father said she can't eat and is rapidly losing weight and asked for her to be checked in, but the ER said no. My mom got a doctor's appointment almost a week later...she was down to 83 pounds, and her doctor admitted her to a different hospital.
She was admitted by way of the ER on Friday night. (Today is Tuesday.) By Saturday, she seemed better and actually had an appetite for the first time in *months,* but she continued to pass all food as soon as she took it. On Sunday, she became disoriented on and off and was confusing reality--she thought she was home, that the nurses were waiters who needed tips, and she imagined various people who as far as we know never were there. This was concerning. She was on vancomycin (oral), IV Flagyl and another IV medication, the last for a UTI. Yesterday, the hospitalist discontinued the UTI antibiotic, saying it could compromise her C. diff treatment. Her health appears to have declined on Sunday and remains poor; the hospital has now put her on morphine to manage her pain, which she did not need on Saturday. She's also now complaining of knee pain.
On Thursday, she will have a colonoscopy and a fecal transplant.
Does anyone have experience with severe C. diff? The hospital seemed to have thought that my mother might be ready to go home today, as recently as yesterday, when she was clearly not improving. Today is her third full day in the hospital. I'm a bit paranoid about this, as both of my grandparents died in the hospital she is in now, one of whom who did so after a feeding tube was accidentally put into his airway instead of his esophagus, and he died from pneumonia shortly thereafter. I don't want her in this hospital--for many reasons, but one of which is that one of her nurses on Saturday didn't wear the gloves and gowns we are all required to wear in my mom's room, and she came and went a couple of times without even washing her hands--but the better one refused to admit her when she went to the ER a couple of weeks ago.
Anyway, I am out of my mind with worry. She's 65 years old and shouldn't be struggling with an opportunistic infection like this.