Comfort and coziness

I made my bed today for the first time since surgery almost a month ago. It felt nice to do... normal. Even though I broke into a sweat spreading the sheets over the bed and arranging pillows, it was completely worth the time and effort. I am getting used to the reality that everything takes so much longer and so much more energy when you can't walk without crutches. I forgot about that since the surgery/PICC line in 2012. The hardest part was probably trying to lean over the bed to tuck the sheets between the wall and mattress while also trying not loose my balance.  I don't know how long it actually took my to do today, but way more than the 2-3 minutes it would normally take.

My days are usually pretty slow, other than an occasional smattering of doctors’ appointments. I am fairly tired most of the time, but I think that is to be expected. I have not been sleeping very well. It is hard to get comfortable with the cast. I have always rolled around a lot in my sleep, which doesn't help either. I will wake up in the middle of the night to find my leg hanging precariously on the edge of the mountain of pillows it is resting on, about to fall out of bed. Being comfortable can take a while. I look forward to the day I can sleep on my stomach again. Now that it gets colder I am actually getting under my duvet instead of sleeping on top of it with a blanket over me (hence the need to start making my bed). Last night I had the duvet and two extra blankets but I couldn't get warm for the life of me. I am not sure what to think of this; being cold was an issue with the bone infection before surgery, but I haven't had to deal with that since, so I am hoping it is weather related and nothing else.

My bed... not that anyone really cares XD I am just disproportionately proud of completing this simple task after so many weeks of being unable to. All the nice pillow cases are in the wash, so I got of the flannel ones.

Making your own bed (and even stripping it down and putting clean sheets on it like I did today) is such a simple task. Most of us probably do it real quick every morning and don't give it a second thought, or we don't make the bed at all, leaving the blankets scrunched up at the foot of the bed or something. When you become ill, simple daily household tasks like making the bed or putting dirty linen in the laundry hamper become these huge looming mountains that seem impossible to summit. Everything is so hard to do that it becomes a big deal when you can finally do something yourself. There is pleasure in doing things like making the bed. I think we run around in this crazy busy world, always working and trying to make money and a name for ourselves, trying to find the next big thing to accomplish or a spectacle to watch (or even be a part of), that we forget how beautiful ordinary life can be.

I am not sure where I am going with that thought... just something I have been thinking about the last few days. Always, back to where we started. I made my bed today and fluffed all my pillows up a bit; place big check mark beside comfort!

Now let’s get to being cozy. As I mentioned, it has been getting colder over the last few days. I think it was only ten degrees outside last night around eleven or twelve. With cold weather, dreary skies, and the inevitable rain it is time to break out the flannel pajama pants and slipper socks! Mum and I went out for a couple of hours yesterday afternoon/evening. First we went to this place called Happy Ralph's (I wore a sweater, and that's saying something because curtching around is hard work that usually results in me overheating or getting sweaty... or both), which somewhat resembles a mini farm, with goats, chickens, donkeys, alpacas, cows, bunnies, ducks, turtles, sheep, a pony and I think  a llama. There was a calf and a baby donkey. Then we went to get fries, drove to Niagara-on-the-Lake, down the Parkway, and ended up at Walmart. I had a lovely time, and it was good to simply get out of the house, to see other people and things. And I got some new pajama pants! 95% of my time is spent in pajama pants. They are by far the most comfortable thing around when you spend the majority of your time sitting down/in bed. And I dug out the slipper socks I bought a month or so ago. So, not only am I comfy with fluffy pillows and fuzzy blankets, I am now nice and cozy. Bring on the cold weather! But only the cold... we don't need any snow or worse... ice, with the whole being on crutches and missing a chunk of tibia thing.

As previously stated, it was lovely to be out with my mum for a few hours. Crutching can be quite tiring, especially if you can't put any weight on the one leg. I did it last week when I had both doctor’s appointment on the same day, and man did my arms hurt the next thing. I tell you, crutches are the perfect ab work out. Anyways. With the cast I have now (a patella tending baring cast), I am allowed to put some weight on my right leg and walk on it a little when using my trusty crutches in case things go horrible wrong and to still support most of my weight with. So that is what I did yesterday. There is a big difference between being on your feet a couple hours like I did yesterday and the little bit of moving around I do at home. The ends of the bone, connected to the bone cement, definitely hurt when I walk for a bit. Not cool. I had quite a bit if pain last night, some bone pain and some pain related to swelling I think. My shin felt like it was super swollen and pressure was building up inside. It feels a lot better today re bone pain (although the muscles are still pretty sore). As with the being cold thing, I am not sure what to attribute the pain to. Some of it felt similar to what I had before surgery, but it could just be a swelling thing or the "holy crap your putting weight on your leg which is pushing the raw end of the bone into the bone cement" thing. You don't have surgery in the same spot four times without some permanent issue coming up. It makes it hard to gauge what it normal or concerning given the circumstances, and having the cast on doesn't help anything because I can't see what is actually going on. I wish things with my leg didn't feel like they were in limbo, in between surgeries. Will there ever be a day when pain, a bit of redness, the odd twinge or spasm, etc. doesn't make me worry that the infection is back? I hope there is. I am tired, and I don't think I could do this again. I know, I have said that before. And the human body and mind have a tremendous ability to coop and adapt to "a new normal". Everything is relative. But I just want to get on with my life. Not to contradict what I said earlier about the beauty of ordinary life. I just want to graduate, pass my nursing certification exam, and lead a quiet simple life. One day...

As for the walking on my crutches - If I don't have anywhere to be/am not in a  rush, I will walk slowly on both the legs and my crutches. But if I need to be anywhere fast I won't walk on the leg. Hoping on my left leg is much faster.

That is it for now. There is not much to post about at the moment. A friend is coming over on Thursday to watch movies, and I heard talk of her brining brownies; I am really looking forward to that (both seeing my friend s and the brownies). And I think my aunt might come over on Wednesday. So there is some stuff to look forward to. And I am making a lot of progress on my huge cross stitch project. I will post on that once I get a bit more done. And I got a new book to read: "Secrete religions: A complete guide to hermetic, pagan, and esoteric beliefs" by Davis Barrett. It is on my list of things to read now, after I finish "A brief history of the druids" by Peter Berresford Ellis. Oh, on top of that I got some of my university textbooks on Vikings from the basement (another first today - first time in the basement since surgery). All good, simple, pleasurable things. =) Now I can sit on my nice clean comfy bed in my new cozy pajamas and slipper socks with a hot cup of tea reading a good book. Definitely comfy and cozy!

Getting close now

Not much longer until surgery now. Less than a day and a half. I can feel the butterflies multiply in my stomach, fluttering around sporadically. I don't know if it is normal to be this nervous or not, given everything I have been through with the infection. More is riding on this than on any of the previous surgeries. I talked about this a bit with my mum this evening. She added that whole "won't have a chunk of your tibia for three months" thing. I try not to think about that... I find it unsettling and quite scary. Before this, I was living on my own, more independent than ever, thoroughly enjoying the nursing program at school, just waiting for bigger better things in life. Eight months and I would have graduated, been preparing to write my certification exam, possibly getting a job offer from my clinical consolidation placement. Now I am home waiting for surgery with a some what vague idea of what the next half year will bring. As if I only have half the pieces for a puzzle.

A friend of my mum invited us over for a bonfire tonight to help distract me. It was incredibly kind of her! The sunset was gorgeous.

Here are some of the pictures I took at the zoo yesterday. As mentioned in the previous post, I didn't take very many.

Breakfast at a local cafe. A meal like this is a big treat; can't believe there are people who have this every morning for breakfast. Think of the cholesterol!

At the orangutans. IV bag in tow... It went better than I expected with the IV. There were only a few instances where a child got to close for comfort.

The two orangutans on display yesterday.

They were holding hands (or feet) for a while, swinging them back an fourth like a couple holding hands while taking a walk. I have a video of it, but can't figure out how to flip video right way up.

One of the two pandas eating bamboo. This was exciting. Last year my family and I stopped at the panda exhibit twice, once when we arrived at the zoo and again as we made our way to the exit at the end of the day. Neither time were either of the pandas doing anything.

Yesterday morning they were napping. But in the evening the one had just been fed =) 

That is it for now. Just trying to keep busy. Made the final PICC line cover today and binge watched some more walking dead. Dentist tomorrow, then perhaps watch the Hobbit or some Lord of the Rings, or go to the book store. Anything to keep distracted.

Minions!

My brother and I went to see the Minion movie tonight. I really liked it. The plot was pretty simple, and some of the humor very stupid, but I enjoyed it none the less. I laughed pretty hard at times too, and that was the point of seeing it - distraction and stress relief. At the end, my brother turned to me and said "That's ninety minutes of my life I will never get back". He was glad that I enjoyed it though, and that was the whole point of going with me =)

Before the movie, decked out in my new minion sweater. As ever, IV bag in tow. 

One weird thing that happened on the way home from the theater: I reached down to scratch my arm, over my sweater, felt my arm all lumpy underneath and completely forgot about the PICC line. It took me a moment to remember what all the bandages on my arm were.

See! The movie did distract me! I forgot I had a PICC line for an hour and a half XD

Apparently...

I turn into a hedgehog after I shower and towel dry my hair.

I think it suits me XD

My final exams were on Monday (Developmental Psych and Health & Healing) and Tuesday (that dreaded Health Sciences), and my clinical examination (OSCE) was Wednesday morning. I didn't think it was possible, but I actually made it through the week. Last week while I was madly studying (as all students really should do before exams, but who am I kidding, at this point of the semester everyone - including myself - looses all desire to study at all), I could have sworn time would just stand still and exams would never happen. But here we are, Friday night, and they are all done! Despite being quite ill and very very very stressed throughout the semester, I have done remarkably well. I exceeded any and all expectation I could possibly have had for my self, even if I was healthy. My marks are beautiful. More than beautiful. Despite all the unpleasant medical things going on and surgery looming close by, I worked so incredibly hard (in a way to tell the infection who really is boss... it can't get the best of me), and it paid off. I am waiting for the results of one more exam and also a small five percent project from several weeks ago, but given all the other grades my average will be in the mid nineties!

My arm continues to burn, sting, and itch. I don't know how much I had really updated over the past weeks. I apologize if I have already mentioned this - I am likely allergic to the PICC line itself. Sort story is, as I kid I could never wear rubber boots without my feet/legs breaking out in a itchy red bumpy rash. Rubber boots are made of polyurethane, the same material PICC lines are made of...

The insertion site continues to leak. I went to the ER in St. Catharines two Sundays ago. The doctor took off the statlock and stitches the PICC to my arm. We also started using dry dressings instead of of tegaderm (pro: no statlock, tegaderm, adhesive to react to, con: dressing change every 2 days rather than once a week, dressing slides down arm over the course of the day, less protection from bacteria, etc). The leaking from the insertion site gets trapped between my arm and the PICC line, causing blisters, irritation, etc. On top of that, the PICC itself causes skin irritation and breakdown, leading to blisters which burst and now won't really heal, so also leak fluid. It burns and itches and makes me cranky. 

The is my left arm the day the first PICC was pulled out.

My arm a few days later...

Ice helps relieve the itch a bit.

 New PICC line in right arm, placed on July 30th. This was July 3st, I think. You can see dried gunky stuff just below where the PICC enters me arm, on the statlock.

Army of little blisters caused by the paper tape used to hold the dressing the ER but on after putting in the stitches.

All the blisters around the line. They have mostly healed now, but not after bursting and hurting like crazy.

Most of the blisters have completely healed now, but the site under the PICC is slowly getting worse. I was in the ER in Hamilton on Monday to deal with it. The stadd were amazing. They had now clue how to fix it, but agreed I am likely allergic to the PICC itself. The nurse and doctor I was assigned to asked pretty much every other nurse and doctor who walked by what they thought they should do. They called the IV nurse and  PICC nurse down to have a look, and a PICC nurse at another hospital. They tried getting hold of my ID specilist, which didn't work, so called another one instead. Only options were to leave it in and live with the itch/blisters, or pull it and risk it with just oral antibiotics. They advised me to keep it, which I agreed to. My nurse had a really good idea to use this grid like sticky material - thread it under the PICC to keep it in place and provide some airflow so the skin could dry and heal a bit. We would have to clean under the PICC first, with sterile saline and a long cotton swab, but it was way to painful. I swore. Multiple times. Loudly. Before asking the nurse to stop. She said it looked like the PICC was embedded in my skin. So we couldn't go through with her super cool dressing idea that I think could actually have worked really well.

I was back in the ER on Wednesday after my OSCE because my line would not give blood return and had some resistance flushing. The ER waiting room was completely full. Here comes the plus side of being in the ER 8 times in a month: all the nurses know me. They jumped me to the front of the line and had me sorted out within ten minutes. Turns out the blue connection thing (see picture above) is incompatible with the PICC. We already remove the blue piece that comes with the extension tubing for this reason, but apparently this piece has the same issue. My nurse told me to throw a fit at anyone who tries to add another blue piece to my set up. The line also had a bit of resistence, so they flushed it really well with five or six syringes of saline until things went in smoothly.

Lo and behold, this morning there was not blood return (even though there was yesterday). But it flushed fine, so I will leave it a bit and see what happens tomorrow morning.

Infectious disease is on holiday somewhere or something, so I haven't heard back from her. Hopefully Monday or Tuesday. Open raw wet skin can only increase the risk of infection around the PICC line. Hopefully she can sort something out. I need the itch to go away.

And that is it for tonight. Still a bunch I want to catch up on (eight ER trips between getting the first PICC to now...). But I am knackered. Time to brush my hair (aka de-hedgehog myself) and get some sleep.

PICC 2.0

Lots to update about. Been a hectic week, in and out of the emergency department, what feels like a million dressing changes, a leaky PICC line, and horrible blisters caused either by vancomycin leaking under the skin or an allergic reaction the the tegarderm/statlock/chloraprep/etc. Leaning toward the former, although I really wish it were the latter.

End result - PICC line was pulled and a new one placed in my other arm. A new PICC. A better PICC. As I like to call it, PICC 2.0

If it does as it should, it will lead a long and useful life. If not... well, it will go the way of PICC 1.0. We didn't like PICC 1.0 very much.

"It" Happened

"It" being the PICC line, a dreaded but necessary evil.

Well, not quite.

For now I have a periphery IV, but the goal is to have a PICC line placed sometime early next week. At least the iv is in my left forearm, so I can still do things (you don't realize how many things require moving your elbows or wrists until you can't move use them at all). And my writing hand remains free - no pass on school work. Bummer. Kidding. I am a nerd. I love school.

We aren't really sure why I keep having issues (read: new small sores opened on shin at the start of the week). Theoretically speaking, I am on so much antibiotics that the infection shouldn't be doing anything at all. But here we are, anyways. It is quite frustrating. After becoming progressively more and more tired, yet sleeping as much as 15 hours yesterday and not feeling any better, I said enough is enough. No more toughing things out.

Long story, which I won't tell tonight because I am fried: I ended up in the emergency room. My infectious disease specialist and the E.R. doctor spoke over the phone. And I am not the proud owner of a periphery iv that got to come home with me, and nasty bruise forming around it, and bruise int he other arm from when the nurse had to re-do my blood work because what she got wasn't enough (she was really kind and did her best! not her fault my veins are shoddy after so many pokes over the years).

I will likely be on IV vancomycin until surgery on August 26. It might be switched up after that, depending on if the samples sent to the lab grow anything or not (lets all keep our fingers crossed that those little bacteria calls grow... but not in me; in a petri dish!).

I am not waiting for the pharmacy to deliver my iv pump, iv pole, medication, and other paraphernalia. Tomorrow I have my first appointment with CCAC. It is not until 11am, so at least I can get a lot of sleep tonight.

I have lots to write, but I am crashing hard, and that is saying something, because I was already like a zombie when I woke up this morning.

Here are some pictures from today. They are crappy, taken with my phone, but they show how horrible I felt.

At home this morning, after I saw sent home from clinical

In the emergency room, waiting to be seen. My eyes where burning at this point. That is how tired I was...

My lovely new fashion accessory. I don't like it, but it might make me feel better... or at least the stuff pumped through it.

Infusing. Only took an hour, and after that I was done and free to go!

All the lovely things...

Now for the pictures of all the lovely things that I needed to take care of my now deceased PICC line.

This is me in the mask I wore for every dressing change. My nurse had to wear one too.

These are the masks before being warn, all flat and what not. The box said that different colours are available, but my box only had green...

 

       The sterile towel that everything needed for a dressing change would be placed on. This thing was huge!

The sterile towel itself, only partially unfolded.

Below is the Statlock used to secure the PICC line to me arm. The nurse always had a lot of trouble getting it of, and more than once pulled off a bit of skin. on the left is the Statlock in its sterile package. On the right it is unwrapped, and the little package was the skin prep which, I think, was meant to make it less sticky and to protect the skin.

This is the Chloraprep used to clean my arm every week. At first I had ones with red curves on the packaging. They contained alcohol which stung badly, so we switch to these with the back curve - non-alcoholic.

Above are picture of the tegaderm dressing that would cover the PICC line at all times. It wasn't allowed to get wet at all... kinda hard when it is really hot and you start to sweat. The white strip around the whole thing comes off after it is out on your arm, and the strips at the side came off to secure the actual tubing to your arm.

Below is the tubing, which was changed every three days. At one point they accidentally ordered me the wrong size tubing. The nurse thought it would be o.k. but I woke up at 6:50 am to the alarm of the IV pump. Because the tubing was bigger and took more to prime (meaning getting a vacuum/all the air out of it before connecting it the the PICC line, and technically me) the 500ml bag of antibiotics I got everyday wouldn't last the 24 hours it needed to. Thankfully the nurse had extra smaller tubing in he car, and by the next tubing change day I had been given the right stuff.

It was very long, which was great when I was sitting on my bed and wanted to hope over to the bookcase in my room, but when I went out it had a life of it's own. It would sneak out of the bag and I would find it randomly trailing on the ground behind me. I gave up after a while and just held onto the excess, playing with it.

The connecter piece which connected my PICC  to the tubing. This often got stuck and we had to use pliers to get it off occasionally...

Gauze padding, used to wrap around the connecter piece/end of my PICC so that they would be more comfortable against my skin, and less affected by the tape holding the tube to my arm.

Alcohol swabs used to clean the connecter piece every time I got a new IV bag (aka every morning, and in between the saline flushes. Basically, disconnect tubing and swab, flush first saline syringe and swab, flush second saline syringe and swab, reconnect tubing, and swab).

Saline syringes to flush the line. This was supposed to be done everyday, but one nurse refused. We eventually just started doing it ourselves along with everything except the dressing changes. BTW my lovely mom did everything for me! It is kind of hard to do for yourself.  I had to laugh so hard when I saw that the plastic wrap around each syringe had instruction in Dutch as well as English and several other languages, since I am from the Netherlands.

Alost everything needed for one tubing change and one dressing change. There should be a few more saline syringes, sterile gloves, and regular gloves. I think that's about it. Oh wait, the actual medication itself. And my badger of course! To bad I am not a Hufflepuff.

I should note, that the actual items shown here were not used. I photographed all this after my PICC line was taken out. If I actually still needed all this stuff I would only have taken pictures of unopened packages.

Peripherally Inserted Central Catheters

Thankfully my PICC line was taken out about two weeks ago, and I will hopefully never have to go through the experience that came with it again. However, I still have several large boxes of supplies left in my kitchen. I can't really do anything with them as I don't need them anymore. Yay! But I still wanted to blog about PICC lines for anyone reading this who is at the start of this journey. So here I go. 

I am not so great at explaining what a PICC line is, so I will link you below to the Wikipedia PICC line page:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peripherally_inserted_central_catheter
But I can tell you about my experience here, and I can show all the 'lovely' things needed to take care of it in the following post.

These are picture os my PICC line shortly after I got home from the hospital. As you can tell, it bleed. It continued to bleed for several weeks, which is completly normal, as well as oozing some odd looking gunky stuff.

I got my PICC line while in my hospital bed in the orthopedic ward the day after surgery. That's right, you don't even have to get out of bed or migrate to another part of the hospital is you were inpatient like me. Two specially trained nurses came in (right at lunch time may I add) and created what they called a sterile field. Basically, they put on protective sterile gowns, masks, gloves, hairnets, shoe covers, etc, and covered all of me except my head and my right arm in sterile blankets. The sterilness of the procedure even extended to the man bringing lunch - he wasn't, as the nurse said, allowed to contaminate her sterile field, so he has to squeeze through the door and walk on the other side of the room to give the other patients their lunches... don't know how that was sterile, but what ever floated their boat. everything needed was laid out on the bed side table, and one of the nurses estimated how long the PICC line needed to be (BTW, their estimate was right one!). The nurses used an ultrasound machine to find a good vein in my upper right arm - in my case the basilic vein, and then, while keeping the ultrasound in place, made a very small incision and placed a guide wire into the vein. Then my arm was numbed with lidocaine. Usually your skin is numbed first. I don't know why mine wasn't. A nurse inserted the actual PICC line and began threading it (to me. I know, that sounds gruesome). When they expect it is getting up to your neck they ask you if you hear anything funny. if you do the line went the wrong way, up your neck. At this stage they can still fix this. Mine did not, and moments later all 36cm of it were inside of me. The dressing was put on, and it was good to go as soon as an x ray was taken to make sure the tip of the line was in the right place. BTW, the x ray was taken with a portable machine - I got to stay in bed again. What awesome service is this!

The PICC line was very strange at first. It took a while to stop hurting, but After a few weeks I was even able to sleep on my right side. the only really difficult part was keeping the IV tubing and the bag of my IV pump from tangling with my crutches. Dressing changes were a bag of surprises. The first few went terribly with me almost fainting, although that could have been due to how the Tazocin made me feel, but the last few went well. The feeling when the tegaderm dressing comes off is amazing, and you almost beg the nurse to keep swabbing your arm with the chlora-prep swabs. Showering was also difficult, especially for me with both my right arm and leg not being allowed to get wet. My mom was amazing and washed my hair for me as often as my little heart desired.

My biggest problem with the PICC was actually the IV pump because I got several batteries which would not hold a charge, so for a while it was always a hit and a miss going out, and worrying about the pump shutting off on its own. I also had trouble with the chlora-prep in the last weeks or so, and I constantly had trouble with the PICC dressings and statlocks peeling off skin. Although the PICC line has been out for 16 days, the skin which was covered by the tegaderm dressing, etc. is still really sensitive and the actul place the line went into my arm is still healing.

Oh, and in case anyone want to know, I had a power-injectable PICC, and a CADD Solis Pump, which my nurses told me was worth 15 000$.

Just thought you all should know...

that in an unforeseen turn of events, my PICC line was pulled out today at my appointment with infectious disease! NO more IVs and dressing changes for me! And a good thing too... on Tuesday I had an allergic reaction to the chloraprep and today it looked like the start of infection. 8 weeks was long enough. I'm still on a bunch of oral antibiotics, but that I can live with.

I still feel terrible, but I hope that I will start to feel better now that I am not longer on the IV Tazocin!

Tazo-Don't

Now that I have vented a bit I should update a little. My leg is doing well. A good amount of the swelling has gone away. There is still some but not as bad as it was (thankfully because being able to feel my skin slowly stretch is a truly disgusting experience). There is still enough that I will discuss it with my infectious disease specialist at my next appointment. There is some concern that after so much damage/many surgeries there is circulation damage. The spots that had opened up a few weeks ago at the peek of swelling are healing. For a while they were leaking tea coloured fluid which is concerning, exp. given that I have also been experiencing some of my pre surgery pain. A good chunk of my right shin has not regained feeling. This was expected as this was the third incision made in the same spot. Also, given that, in order close the incision, the old scar had to be cut away, the skin is fairly tight and my shin is really bumpy. I hope that this gets better as I move farther and farther from surgery. The muscles are still extremely tight. I think that I almost have full range of motion in my ankle, but I can feel the muscles moving/flexing over my shin. Going down stairs is still pretty uncomfortable.This is probably because while in surgery the muscles had to be moved out of the way. Amazing that eight weeks later I am still feeling the side effects of that.

The antibiotics have not been going very well. I have had at least one headache everyday for the last week, often more. The IV Tazocin makes me very dizzy and nauseous. I often just end up laying in bed for a hours at a time. It seems to be the worst at night, esp. because I have been experiencing really bad insomnia. Because I am often so nauseous I haven't been eating a lot. Between last night 11pm and today 7pm today (that's 20hours) I ate about 6 small chocolate flavored cracker things and that was it. There was no inclination to eat. None at all. Just past 7pm I did eat a small bite of lasagna and a small bowl of chips, but I am really not interested in food. Take last night for example, my brother brought me a bowl of Ringos, but just the smell of them made me want to vomit. I have pretty much have zero stamina. Everything is such an effort these days. I don't want to sound dramatic, but I feel even worse than I did last spring right before I was diagnosed, which is really saying something because last spring I was a zombie. The antibiotics have some sort of cumulative effect. The longer you take them, esp. without missing a dose, the better they are supposed to work. However, the antibiotics can "just stop working" after a while. I have been on the oral Septra since last August so who know at this point. I won't have any answers until my next scans are done. My stomach has been on the fritz again, but I know that telling you this is making people scream "TMI! TMI," so I won't go further into that.

FYI -Tazocin is a strong antibiotics used for serious infections. It also has some really serious side effects. The chances of getting one of those serious side effects increases the longer you are on it. From what I have been told, most people take Tazocin for 2-3 weeks. I am at 8 weeks and feel like crap, so I am at the point where I want off this drug. I also just learned that one of the main ingredients Piperacillin decreases the effectiveness of Doxycycline, the oral antibiotic I was on right after surgery, so I am very happy to be back on the Septra. As for the Tazocin, I want off that ****.

Blah Blah Blah... I am fed up.

I have been feeling very blah the last few days. I think I have finally hit my "wall". You know, that point where you just don't want to continue anymore, and even if you manage to continue it's only because others drag you through it. Of course I am being dramatic, typical of me when I am in a bitchy mood, but I have a right to have had enough. I have a right to say no more. It is so easy for everyone to encourage me and tell me how well I am doing, but that gets old fast. I don't want to be strong. I don't want to smile through the rough patches while I wait for better days. I definitely do not want to push myself so that I feel accomplished, because doing so will take up all of my energy. I want to do what people are supposed to do when they are sick. To sleep a ridiculously insane amount, to not feel the need to look good in public, to not have to set priorities and please people. If I can lounge around the house I will be perfectly content. Basically, I want to be sick.

Wait.

Don't get me wrong. I know what you are thinking but it is not what I mean. I do not actually want to be sick. Nobody does. But since I am and have been for such a very long time, I want to be able to be sick without feeling guilty for all the things in my life that I am missing. I already feel shitty because I am ill, why should I guilty for being ill, feel even worse because I can't meet people's expectations? Why do people find the concept of being ill so hard to understand? If you are healthy you are well and able to everything as usual - no big deal, but if you are sick people expect you to be strong and still do the things healthy people do. In first year sociology, way back when in Fall 2010 I learned about the "sick role". I don't want to be the person to fulfill that role, to be that member of society, but I don't want to act as if I am healthy either. I want to be free to have my good days when I feel up to getting out of the house, and then have my down days where I can crash at home without worrying what other people think.

Today, at clinic for my PICC dressing change, all I wanted to do was stop. Just to stop treatment and say F*uck this, I will take my chances with the osteomyelitis. Everything started o.k. The nurse (Victoria) got the old dressing off and everything ready, sterile field an all. We donned our masks and we began. Usually the chloraprep swabs create a wonderful sensation as they rub the skin that is trapped under the tegaderm dressing (aka the I can't get to it if it itches barrier). This was much needed since the insertion site has been oozing gunk (perfectly normal) the whole week. Most usually comes off with the dressing, but today some chunky stuff needed a little bit of extra prodding. The chloraprep felt great for a few minutes. I even told the nurse that, and that I could sit there all day with her swabbing my arm. But it soon began to itch, and then then itch began to hurt just a smidgin, and then that slightly hurting itch became a painful OMFG this is an insane kind off torturish itch. And I couldn't do anything. Nothing at all. We were still waiting for the chloraprep to dry before finishing so the nurse started to flush the line. Every week we need to check for blood return. Last week we got none. We didn't get any today either. The nurse sat there, trying her best but it just made everything hurt more. But the nurse had to keep trying because they need blood return. We couldn't use the Heparin available because it can cause problems with the Tazocin. The Heparin prevents blood clots and the Tazocin can make bleeding hard to stop so you can imagine the emergency if they interact with one another.  After a few minutes Victoria gave up (rule of thumb for PICC lines = if it hurts, stop.).  I was left sitting there, almost in tears, begging Victoria to pull the line out. I was completely ready to be done with IVs, to take my chances with the osteomylitis if I still have it. But of course Victoria (wonderful and funny as she is) can't pull the line as she obviously needs a doctor's permission to do that. So we returned our attention to my every increasing itch. She tried using Iodine swabs, which worked for all of five second, and then the itch got even worse. I know have a Mepilex dressing over my PICC line. It's not great because it's not see through, but we couldn't take the risk of me being allergic to the tegaderm. Victoria said if the itching stay the same or gets worse to come back the next day. After a few hours it did finally die down, but the itch is still there.

And I just want this all to be over. I think I need to have a good long discussion with my infectious disease specialist when I see her next.

Feeling ill (again or still?)

I do not feel well today. My stomach is going crazy. I feel feint. My head hurts on and off. Never extremely painfully but it never really leaves either. And on top of all that I am nauseous.

The tape which secures the end of my PICC line to my arm so that the end doesn't flop around and get caught on things had such strong adhesive that it pulled of skin. The PICC line itself has been causing me a great deal of irritation. It started to itch extremely badly after the dressing change yesterday morning. Last night it was difficult to sleep because the insertion site hurt/stung like crazy, and this morning it was bright red. Oh, and there is something that looks a lot like pus coming out of it.

To add to everything, my leg hurts. I wish I knew for sure if the infection is gone. My next scans should be in a 3 or 4 weeks. Infectious disease will schedule them at my next appointment on June 14th. Together, not knowing and waiting are difficult.

I am not a happy camper today. One my friends wants to plan a camping trip for the end of summer, so sometime in August. A bunch of us did this after high school graduation a few years ago and it was a huge success. He said he hopes I can come, but I doubt it. If all goes well my line will be pulled July 17th. Two weeks after that I see my surgeon for followup, and then probably mid August I will have another appointment with infectious disease. I will need to stay out of the sun for a while too, as I will probably stay on the oral Septra longer, which makes it extremely easy to burn. The whole summer feels like a write off. No fun for me. It sucks watching your friends move on with their lives while you can't do nearly half the stuff they do. I am jealous. I want to be healthy like them.

Well , the no fun part is not completely true. I will find other fun things to do. It just sucks that things are limited due to the bone infection. And my not feeling well today doesn't help my attitude either. My apologies if this was a stupid useless post to read, but I really needed to rant.

A new round of firsts

Even seven weeks post surgery there are still so many "firsts" that I am stumbling (both literally and figuratively) upon. I experience these firsts after every surgery, but they always feel the same - all bright and shiny and new. As much as bone infections and surgeries suck, they make a great way to stay grounded when combined together. There is nothing finer than taking pleasure in life's little things when you have to deal with the ups and downs of chronic illness.

What has sparked me to post this on my blog you ask? My first shower since surgery of course! As loving as my mother was to wash my hair every few days, and as refreshing as sponge baths where (not always so much) taking a shower cannot be topped. Hopefully taking a shower standing up will follow soon after, and then showering without my arm all wrapped up in plastic and elastics to protect my PICC line, and not having to worry about 15 000$ IV pumps getting wet...

Long over do update

I've made it to the half way mark. Six weeks down and six more to go! Six weeks and I... and I hope I will never have to go through any of this again.

On May 4th I went for my post op appointment. The surgeon was amazing, as usual (it makes such a difference to have doctors that have good people skills!). He went over everything that had been done during surgery and said he thought he had gotten all the dead bone out and crammed everything full off antibiotic beads and sponges. He was very pleased because he though a lot more would have to come out. He said that I could ditch my trusty arch nemesis (my crutches), which was a huge relief because the bag with my IV pump was always getting in the way. I'm not allowed to do anything but walk until the next time I see him, but I don't have the energy to be running around anyways. The staples were taken out (only seventeen this time), steri strips were put on with a dressing over top and I was good to go. I was given orders to see a colleague of the surgeon two weeks after the IV antibiotics have been finished (my surgeon will be on paternity leave).

This is one of the x-rays taken right after surgery when I was still in the PACU/recovery room before being moved to the orthopedic ward. The gray spots in are were bone had been taken away. Here you can see how deformed my right tibia is. It should be a lot smoother and thinner. 

May 10th I saw my infectious disease specialist. My mom and I had a really long talk with her about everything and all of out concerns and "what ifs". She was really good in answering all of our questions and reassuring us that even if things don't go as planned, we do have other options. She had a med student with her. A really nice (and attractive *wink*) doctor who was studying to be a specialist for pediatric cancer. He was getting some experience in other parts of the hospital because cancer patients can have so many different complications due to chemo, etc. On the one hand it's great that doctors can learn from what I am going through, but on the other you can't help wondering why they look at your case specifically. There aren't that many people with bone infections, and as far as I have been told a lot of the people my ID specialist sees are pretty straight forward cases (meaning no surgery/PICC lines). It was so weird to hear the ID saying she had had a very long conversation with the med students about me the day before. Hospitals are unique in that sense. You have a whole team of doctors who know everything there is to know about your health yet you know next to nothing about them. While there we decided to stop the Doxycycline because I had developed really bad heartburn (which can lead to ulcers) and some other not so pleasant side effects, and went back to the oh so familiar Septra (the name still reminds me of sepsis). The incision still hadn't healed so we put on new steri strips and decided to continue dressing changes. I see the ID again on June 14, when we will schedule my next set of scans.

Saturday the 19th the weekend nurse decided I didn't need a dressing anymore, even though parts of the incision still hadn't healed, so on Monday 21st I asked the nurse to put a new dressing on. By noon the steri strips had turned a yellow orangey tinge. The incision had decided to leak fluid. We kept putting new dressings on until two 1/2 days ago, and everything looked healed up.

Life has been going pretty slowly over the last few weeks. Some days I have a noticeably larger amount of energy, and other days, like today, it is hard just to get out of bed. The last few days the incision site has really been bugging me.  Late Monday evening it started to sting. I thought it might just go away so ignored it. Tuesday it didn't go away and when I looked at my leg I saw that the scar was pretty red and a pit puffy. Yesterday it really hurt and I could squeeze fluid out of the incision. Today it hurts a bit less and seems less swollen but I am nervous never the less. My mom keeps going on about "it looks a bit better", but that was the story with the infection for months and months before surgery. I am afraid that something is still going on. Surgery, antibiotics in my leg, and six weeks of IV antibiotics should not equal a draining incision. It feels like the skin is stretching, which happens when there is swelling. This isn't the swelling from surgery because that had started to go down, and never hurt. This time it definitely hurts and it is really red. I am going to call the ID tomorrow because I am not happy. On top of everything I feel like crap, am exhausted and have been battling a pretty bad headache over the last few days. I am exhausted.

Fingers crossed that everything is ok, but I am a pretty good judge about knowing if everything is doing as it should in my body.

PICC Line Dressing Changed

The dressing change for the PICC line was this morning. It went, well, it went, and not uneventfully. Thankfully the dried blood came off easily, although there is still one tiny spot of scab that is sticking on for dear life. The insertion site also decided to bleed again. Today's home nurse said it is because there is still bruising around the insertion site. The damn thing won't stop bleeding 'till the bruising goes away... who would have thought almost three weeks later?

Half way through the dressing change I was struck with some pretty intense nausea and dizziness. I was so light headed I thought I would faint. I asked my mom for a bowl in case I threw up (thankfully I didn't). Only afterward did I realize how silly I must have looked, hunched over a bowl, trying not to hurl while wearing a mask, and with my harm stuck out waiting for the cleaning stuff to dry! When the line was put in, the PICC nurse at the hospital put the guide wire in before she numbed my arm. None of my home nurses understand why it was done in this order, as, which is a reasonable, the arm should have been numbed first to avoid any pain (it hurt, a lot). I think that because of the way it was put in, I have somehow, unconsciously, become afraid of the dressing changes. I can deal with it being in my arm, I am fine with the dressing changes on my leg and looking at the incision, and have a really high pain tolerance (I can be at 5 out of 10 without needing pain meds, and then my 5 is a 8 to some of my friends). I went unphased by the puss coming out of the incision from my surgery in 2008, and was fine with the abscess on my shin and the bone fragment that came out of it in early 2011, but for some unknown reason I can't deal with the PICC dressing change. But anyways, the dressing is changed and I have a glorious week before it has to happen again.

In other news, I feel pretty shitty. I think that the ten months of antibiotics have really fucked up my insides. I would ask you to pardon the swearing, but I want to blog exactly how I feel, and how I feel is fucked up. In other words, lets just say that the bathroom has been my best friend this past week. Thankfully I see my infectious disease specialist this Thursday, so I can ask her for some advice. My biggest concern with the antibiotics is that there have been several c-difficile outbreaks in the region over the last year. Chances are I don't have it, but because I have been on the antibiotics so long, and have been to several hospitals quite a lot for appointments, I want to make sure that everything down there is as fine as it can be at the moment.

I have also been insanely tired, increasingly so since surgery, which I attribute to all the antibiotics and the shock of surgery itself. I feel like I am back to where I was last summer e.g. sleeping ten hours, waking up, eating and then going right back to bed. Again, hopefully infectious disease has some way of helping me with this.

And lastly, health wise, I slipped a bit down the stairs today. I caught myself, but the muscles in my leg do hurt more than they did before. The outside of the dressing on my leg still looks good, so I am going to assume that everything is o.k. and will as the home nurse to look at it in the morning.

Today was a nice day when I ignore how I feel. My mom and I went to a plant center and we bought some purple/black petunias, and some yellow ones as well. Then we took a nice long drive in the country (the Niagara region is beautiful, even though everything has already blossomed), and found a very, very hidden but still used cemetery. We will go there for a picnic one day as it is right beside a small park/hiking trail. We cam home and had lasagna, hot dogs, and chips for dinner (yum!). And now I am here, typing this all out and about to go read in bed. Hopefully I feel better in the morning.

PICC Dressing Chnage Tomorrow

PICC line dressing change in the morning. That will not be fun... the non-alcoholic cleaning swabs did finally arrive last week, so the insertion site shouldn't sting when it is cleaned, but the site has decided to bleed on and off last over the last 6 days. The blood, now dried, is stuck to a scab that wouldn't come off last week. The nurse wouldn't pull it off then because it hurt too much, but it has to come off tomorrow. My biggest dilemma until then is whether or not to eat before the dressing change. Somehow I think it doesn't matter... I will be nauseous either way.

The dressing for the surgical incision was changed to day. There was still some blood (at least, I hope it was blood) coming from one spot, and everything is still really swollen and numb. Fingers crossed everything continues to heal well. I am still experiencing some bone pain so I am hopping everything is going the way it should, what ever that way may be =P.

Puttering around

I haven't posted in a while. I haven't really felt like interacting with the world. Like an animal, injured by people on the hunt, I have retreated to lick my wounds (not literally of course!). But I can't stay in my house forever. I have to come face the world again. Both the awakening sunshine and the people who stare at me, at my crutches, at my PICC line, at my tubing and IV pump.

My post-op appointment is in the morning, at 11:45am. I would say this is a good thing because I usually get stuck with the dreaded 8:00am appointments, which really sucks when it takes an hour to get to the hospital (Yay! but not so much for waking up at 6:00am when you are ill), but I am up at 8:00 everyday for the home nurse anyways. I know, I know... 8:00am is a very reasonable time to get up, and many people have to crawl out of their cozy beds much earlier than that, but when you have had a bone infection for six years, did nine months of antibiotics, then had yet another surgery, and switched to IV antibiotics, 8:00am shouldn't even be an option on the alarm clock.

I won't lie about it. I have been a bit sad the last few days. I suppose sad isn't actually the right word to describe it. No, I have been realistic. Yesterday was the first day I voiced my concerns to one particular nurse. I am usually quite upbeat when the nurse arrives, but yesterday I really needed a day to vent. To just moop around and let my feelings out. Of course, that wasn't allowed by the nurse. She kept going on how I needed happy thoughts to get better because a lack of optimism decreases the likely hood of getting better. But that's the things. I am not not optimistic. I just see things as they are. I have had an infection for six years. So far my doctors still don't know the type of bacteria causing the infection, which makes it very hard to figure out the best medication with which to treat things. I just don't want to set my expectations to high.

The two weeks since surgery have been mostly agreeable. I went on a nice drive with my mom about a week ago, and than out to Niagara on the Lake for a quick, improvised picnic, e.g. go to the little super market there to buy some drinks, muffins, and a bag of chips, and then go to the park for a small stroll (is it strolling when you are on crutches?) and a scrumptiously simple feast! After tomorrows appointment my mom and I will take the scenic route home, and on Saturday my best friend Beth is coming over for a bit. Next week Thursday I have an appointment with my infectious disease specialist, and Beth is coming with my mom and I so we can go to IKEA together afterward, since it is on the route home. And then on Saturday my opa is arriving from the Netherlands for just over a week.

Physically I have been surviving. The incision site hardly hurt at all compared to the one of the previous surgery. Since I got home from the hospital I have only taken three percocets (really tried to stay away from those as they are so addictive, and they were given out like candy in the hospital) and a few Tylenol extra strengths. But the staples have been pinching like crazy. I will be very happy if they come out tomorrow (fingers crossed). The muscles in my leg are still fairly sore. I can walk on the leg unaided because the bone is strong enough, but the doctor said to stay on them, which is good because if I move a lot (still not a lot) or to quickly the muscles spasm and hurt. Sometimes they just hurt on their own! I have been really really exhausted (thanks a lot antibiotics! - sarcasm), more so than before surgery so that isn't fun. I will bring it up with my surgeon at post-op. The antibiotics make my my mouth taste really sweet, and make my dizzy and drowsy. And as one nurse said, "It is pretty much to get constipated while on Tazocin." I know, tmi, tmi, but my stomach is driving my crazy.

My PICC line thankfully turned out not to be infected. It just really likes to ooze, and since my latest dressing change on Tuesday it has decided to bleed quite a bit. The nurses blame it on using the crutches on the stairs, but it started to bleed right after the dressing change. I think it is just bound to bleed, no matter what. And it is so itchy under the dressing. It would be just my luck to be allergic to the tegaderm!

I am really tired now, so I should get to bed. 8:00am comes to soon... and if I stay up any longer I will be awake when the IV pump goes off for the next dose. It makes more noise at night because there is less fluid in the IV bag because it is the last dose before the bag is changed so the pump has to work harder...its a weird clicking noise that makes it hard to fall asleep. I will try to updates after post-op tomorrow. It will likely be sometime in the late afternoon/early evening as the wait times can be pretty long and I have some errands to run (haha the irony) once back from the hospital. I also have some other stuff I want to post about, so hopefully I will get to that in the next few days.

Surgery - Third times the charm!

I had surgery last week Wednesday, April 18, to remove the dead bone in my right tibia and the surrounding, infected tissue. Here, I present you with my surgery in pictures ('cause I'm to tired to write about the whole thing).

 I woke up at quarter to five to get to the hospital by seven am. I use the term woke up loosely because I don't think i got more than twenty minutes of sleep. My mom and I got to the hospital around 6:30 and went to admitting. from there we were sent to the same-day/short stay ward for pre-op which is on the fifth floor.  Below is a picture os me in my over sized hospital gown. Since I was being admitted overnight, I didn't get to stay in this room. Everyone was really nice. My mom and i couldn't stop laughing and making jokes, and for some reason we found the nurses really funny. Every time they came in they had to check my hospital bracelet to make sure I was the right person. My only complaint was the the IV bleed quit a lot when it was put in.

I look so tired, but couldn't sleep at all, although I was able to lie down for a bit. 

I was taken to the pre-op waiting room (on the third floor) about 8:15. I had to go to the bathroom so many times (thanks to the IV antibiotics I was already receiving -I got Ancef), and as a pre-op nurse said, got to waltz with my IV pole. Everyone having surgery had to wear funny blue hairnets. That waiting room is an interesting experience. I was the second patient there, so I got to people watch as the room filled up... at least 15 people having surgery at one time! WOW! Since I was able to walk to the surgery waiting room I got to sit in a comfy chair, and had a nice conversation with a man having surgery to fix a hernia. He too got to join the dark side with it's funky blue hats.

Here is my lovely (oh so not fashionable) hair net!

I was so cold. The nurse and porter who brought me down kept giving me warm blankets. The porter was joking that I would be as warm as a pop tart!

My surgeon's lovely signature on my leg (don't want to operate on the wrong leg!)

The anesthesiologist talked with my mom and I about a nerve block and something else since I had so much pain after the previous surgery (an unmitigated disaster), but in the end we decided against it. We figured that, although the risk would be small, we wouldn't rick sticking a needle in my spine... I already have one stubborn infection to deal with. Before I new it, it was time to go the the OR. There were at least 7 people in there -nurses, assistants, med students, the anesthesiologist, the surgeon himself. I told them to enjoy themselves, and the next thing I know, I was in the PACU.

After surgery I was brought to recovery (PACU - Post Anesthetic Care Unit) just after 11:30am. I was told most people don't remember much of this, but I remember everything. My pain was mostly a 5 on a 1 to 10 scale, maxing at a 6, so it wasn't to bad  (I know, it was, but I have really high pain tolerance). I was given morphine, which I have had lots of before, and dilaudid for the first time (amazing stuff!). I was allowed to have ice chips at this point, but that was a big mistake as I threw up almost immediately when I arrived in my room on the orthopedic ward. I was in recovery for about two hours. It would have been less, but I had to wait for the portable x ray people, and they were really, really slow.

Here I am just after arriving on the sixth floor in the orthopedic ward. There are a lot of people on that ward, way more than I expected. In the hospital in my region, there isn't an orthopedic ward at all! I was briefly texting my best friend that everything went well. She kindly posted an update on my face book wall because I don't use the internet on my phone.

My blood pressure was really low most of Wednesday. I don't know exaclty what it was at its lowest, but I know at one point it was about 90 over 60, and I felt like I was going to faint. I was really dizzy and drowsy, and dozed most of the day. I know my grandfather has low blood pressure issues, and I think that I might, so I will speak to one of my doctors about that soon.

This was my IV Wednesday evening, just when the saline and Ancef had finished and before I got hooked up to new stuff. Blood had gotten into it, which continued to happen every time I needed the IV bag to be changed.

This is Winks. I got him on my 18th birthday to prove how "not a child" I am. I sat him on the end of my bed until i was discharged.

Still on a liquid diet in the evening. Dinner was severed at 5:30 I think, but I didn't really eat until 7ish. You can't really tell here, but I was really pale. The nurse and my mom kept commenting  about it.

Go jello go! I didn't even touch the applesauce, soup, and tea, and I drank the ginger ale the next day.

By 8pm pain was at about a four, so I was given some stuff for it. I was allowed to choose between morphine and Tylenol extra strength. I took the latter. I was in a room with three other patients - Two women and one man.  The woman across from me had been in a car accident and suffered a badly broken right leg. Her other leg was also pretty bruised, to the point she could not stand on it to get up. She gave some encouraging smiles when my PICC line was being placed. The woman beside me was really old, and I think a bit demented. She had fallen and broken her shoulder and collar bone and couldn't even stand up. Her arms were covered in bruises from attempted IVs. I think the nurses gave up after a while. She was constantly yelling. At one point in the afternoon she kept calling out "Help! Help! I am trapped under a computer!" I don't know anything about the man in the corner, as he was discharged while I was dozing and dealing with the low blood pressure. Another man was brought in around 10:30pm, and he wasn't in good shape at all. I threw up once more just before my mom left at 8:00pm, which is when visiting hours end. It was all bile and tasted really bad. It is really good I only had the jello for dinner!

Almost 1:00 am and the old shoulder lady started screaming. After trying to calm her down for a while, the nurses gave her something to drink, and I think they had put some sort of sedative in there... thankfully. Almost 7am the next day a nurse woke me to take vitals and go the the bathroom (Holy ****, the IV makes you need to pee a lot!). Breakfast was at 8am, and I was really impressed. When I had my last surgery at another hospital, breakfast was served at 7:30 and the food tray taken away by 8. Here, you were allowed to keep the tray/food until the next meal in case you were not up to eating when it was served.

Here I am at 7:00am. I texted this picture to my best friend, Beth, with the message "Good morning sunshine!"

Yay! for a liquid breakfast again. I actually really wasn't hungry, so I didn't mind the lack of solid food at all.

PT came in the morning to get me out of bed (thank god! I could use the real bathroom). They got me up with a walker, but when I told them I was getting a PICC line, they decided to come back later to see me perform (like a circus!) on the stairs with my trusty companions the crutches. The surgeons assistant came to see me, and asked if infectious disease had seen me yet, but they hadn't. Around 10:00am the nurse was helping me up so that I could wash up in the bathroom (that self given sponge bath felt so good =>), when the orthopedic surgeon came in. The nurse kindly held my hospital gown closed a the back. He was surprised that I remembered seeing him in the recovery room. I remember him saying that everything went well, that not as much bone had to be taken out as expected, and that he was going to see my mom. Like I said, washing up felt really good, and brushing my teeth. And when I got back to bed, al, the sheets had been changed! Apparently, the nurses have to give everyone clean sheets once a day... and they felt so nice.

By noon I still wasn't really hungry, but was disappointed when I had to wait for lunch. The PICC like people had arrived. Did you know they can do anywhere between 10 to 35 PICC lines a week? I'm amazed I have never meet anyone with one before, lol The whole sterile procedure and use of the ultrasound machine was really cool, but it hurt when the guide wire went in. that was done before the skin was numbed, and I screamed. the lidocaine burned like hell, and I screamed again, but it was worth it when things were done. The whole procedure went really well and really fast. Hardly any bleeding at all.

After the PICC was placed, I had a chest x ray (in my hospital bed, with the portable machine. how cool is that?).  Right afterwards, PT came again to get me to demonstrate my awesome crutching skills. The car accident woman across from me kept asking to use crutches instead of a walker, even though she could hardly get up. This women, in her late 50's I think, said she had tried them before, but wasn't very good. The nurses had to explain that they usually only recommend crutches to young people who have used them before. Older people are more likely to fall using them as crutches are not as stable as walkers. I felt a small bit of pride in how impressed PT was with me, and they taught my how to go up and down stairs properly.

Lunch was tasty, finally something solid, although I wasn't really hungry, just a bit nibbly-ish. The ham sandwiches were nice, but i prefer them without butter.

Here is my leg early in the afternoon, just before I was allowed to put my pajama pants on.

Afterward the surgeon's assistant came back to ask if infectious disease had seen me yet, but they hadn't, and then the lady in charge of home care came to see me. She explained a lot of things to me and answered man of my questions. Thankfully my mom arrived just before she left, as I would not have been able to remember most of the stuff the the woman said, and relayed it correctly to my mom.

My awesome mom brought me some magazines to look at, and then we sat, waiting, and waiting, and then waiting some more. Around 4:00pm, infectious disease finally got to me. My regularly ID specialist works at another hospital which works with the one I was in, but she couldn't see me, so her college did. She took a lot of time to speak with me an my mom, and answered some of out most important questions. I was a bit disappointed because we originally were told 6 weeks of IV antibiotics, and that being only one injection into the PICC a day. But instead I am doing 12 week, with three infusions of two hours each a day. I am connected to my pump 24/7.

The plan was to hopefully get my home that night (Thursday), but it would depend on if home care could be set up in time and if i could get my first dose of IV medication before it was to late. My mom told the nurse that if I wasn't discharged by 7:45pm I would have to stay the night. The IV supplies would be dropped off at my house at 9:00pm, so we needed time to get home, about an hours drive. By 4:30pm I was finally getting a bit hungry, so my mom went to get me some snacks (I told you my mom is awesome!). She came back to my room and we chilled out for a bit, until dinner came just just after 5:30pm. We were starting to get skeptical about going home that night, so my mom went to the hospital restaurant to get something to eat. Just as she got back, almost 6:30pm, the nurse walked in with my IV meds - Tazocin. This antibiotic has to go through a pump, which thankfully finished infusing just after 7:00. By 7:30 I was discharged, and by 7:45 I was outside waiting outside for my mom to get the car.

This was my hospital bed just as I was leaving to go home.

While sitting outside, waiting for mom, I thought about all the people who had come to see me in one day. I don't really remember the order in which people saw me today, but here is a list:

- Physical therapy (twice)
- PICC line team
- X-ray people
- Surgeon's assistant (twice)
- Surgeon himself
- Home care
- Infectious Disease Specialist

I don't know how they organize it all, but i was very impressed!

And that was surgery. I was home quarter to nine, ready for the home care company to drop of my first set of supplies, and thankful to be in my own bed! One more milestone passed, and one fewer (albeit I don't know how many more) to go.

It had taken my a good part of the day to write this, on and off, so I am going to bed know. Home nurse comes bright and early - as they (who?) say, "The early bird catches the worm."