Well, the beginning of last week found us once again back at the hospital. I'm starting to know the nurses and respiratory therapists on a first name basis ("Cindy could you call Sue? He needs suctioned"). Or then there's the occasional person who recognizes me and inevitably waves and asks "Hey, how ya doin'?" to which I fight the urge to reply, "Well, seeing as I'm in the ER again, pretty crappy, thanks!"...smiling all the while. At any rate, he'd been running a low grade fever for a while, his sputum had turned at least ten shades of green/yellow, he wasn't tolerating his feedings (he's down to 115 lbs. if you can wrap your head around that)...and we just knew it was time to head back in.
So that's where we are. His cultures have come back (takes a while to determine what's growing in what), and it looks like we have the same culprits as back in January except this time packing a bit more antibiotic resistance. The infectious disease doctor wants to treat him until Friday and then send him home. I guess the bottom line is that these are the kind of infections you don't really ever get rid of, you just suppress or try to control them for as long as possible. We also have a physical therapist coming in to move him around and try to keep from reversing the progress he's made in the past couple months...but to be honest, that's going to be a challenge after being in bed for 2 weeks straight. I guess we'll see!
If anyone would like to come to visit him, you are more than welcome! He's wide awake most of the time and probably totally sick of me and my mom at this point. We're in the new wing of the hospital in a super swanky suite in the Cardiac Telemetry Unit where there's a flat screen TV and the nurses are rockstars. Just sayin', in case you need a little incentive :)
Hopefully all is well with you, I'll be sure to update sooner than later next time.
