Reasonable Health (part 10)

Is is now Sunday night and I was admitted into the Hospital last Thursday a little before midnight.  When I came in, my temps were pushing 101 and Friday morning in the hospital, the temps hit 101.5.  Normally, these kinds of temps would not be of any concern, but Doc B thought that there might be a secondary infection brewing, or maybe the abscess was starting to grow again (neither would be particularly good).

So when I first arrived, the nurses took blood cultures from my PICC line and from the opposite arm.  And then they took more blood from the forearm of the arm with the PICC line.  All of this was immediately set out to culture.  The reason they took blood from the PICC line was that they also wanted to see if the PICC line had anything growing.  At that point, they added Vancomycin (yet another very powerful broad spectrum antibiotic) to my treatment.

The next morning, more blood work from all the same places.  They explained to me that cultures take 48 to 72 hours to grow.  They also explained that even though I had all that blood taken the previous evening, my hospital doctor wanted to have the blood taken again to make sure nothing was missed.  In addition, Doc B ordered the PICC line removed.  The end of the PICC line (the part that was in my heart) was cut off and sent in for testing for infection.  Now it was a waiting game to see what all the cultures might grow.

During the next few days, my fever reduced pretty radically.  By Sunday, my fever was very low grade and stayed mostly between 98 and 99.5 (sound familiar?).  I was feeling much better and one of my doctors (Doc A) suggested that I might be going home tomorrow.  She shared that all culture growth was NEGATIVE (very good).  In addition, my white cell count was completely normal (also good) and my liver function was normal.  The doctor also suggested that they may skip putting in another PICC line and may send me home with just oral antibiotics (halleluia!).

So here I sit, waiting for tomorrow.

As a side note, I have mentioned very little about my roommates.  My current roommate is a gentleman in his late 80's that was admitted to our room just about one hour before me on Thursday evening.  He is a very nice fellow with a spunky, upbeat wife and fine family.  I will not talk about his condition since it is none of anyone's business, but I will share this one bit of information.  Tonight (Sunday night), he is prepping for a colonoscopy in the morning.  These are small rooms and he cannot make it to the bathroom, so he has to use a little portapotty next to his bed.  Those of you who have had a colonoscopy know what kind of evening he (and I) are in for.

I wanted to share this little tidbit just to give you a smile and let you know that very little that happens in the hospital, happens in a vacuum, so to speak.  Without question, I have been taking more walks this evening in the hospital than I have in all the other days combined that I have been here.

It is now 11:30pm and it looks like he may have a few more visits before he, and I, get any sleep.  Smile tonight when you try to imagine sleeping through that.