An Infection

Checking the blog, I see that the last post was on the first of March, a whopping 6 days ago. I am amazed at how difficult it is to find time to sit down and stroke just a few sentences to keep people up to date. I’ll try to bring you up to speed all at once, now:

The hallucinations and subsequent departure from reality are a thing of the past…for Sandy, that is. It seems that she may have set off a chain of events with her example. Her floor-mates are experiencing similar episodes with great abandon. We now appreciate just how minor Sandy’s episode was! Last night, one man attempted to escape repeatedly and kept falling down (I suggested to the nurses that they have a Bears helmet ready for such occasions). There has been yelling and screaming, paranoia, people pulling out IVs and, yes, catheters, and cats mating with dogs! Just kidding about that part.

Throughout last week, Sandy did not seem to improve much. You could tell that things were healing, and the doctors repeatedly confirmed that the organ is working well. Despite this, her energy would not return and even seemed to get significantly worse. Her white blood cell count was elevated, but there was no other indication of an infection. When she did try to drink something, it created immense pain in her stomach. Her blood count dropped to alarming levels, and she was finally given a couple of units of blood on Friday night. That seemed to pick her up a bit through Saturday and Sunday. But then, on Monday, her levels were again dangerously low. She was given two more units of blood while we all wondered what was causing the problem.

When someone keeps losing blood, you immediately wonder where it is going. They have been persistent in imaging her regularly to watch for any bleeding or accumulation of fluids. There has been no indication that anything is bleeding, and her drains are monitored closely and analyzed. No signs of infection.

On Tuesday, the doctors told Sandy that the labs finally identified a bacteria in her system that explained the blood problem. The infection had not been obvious, despite their efforts to monitor her fluids for weeks. Apparently, this is a reasonably well understood bacteria that responds well to antibiotics. Sandy was given the first dose of medication on Tuesday, and the turnaround has been remarkable. She started to feel better within hours. She is back up and walking maybe two or three laps around the floor each day.

I can’t say that the countdown has started, but it is fair to say that there is a floating window now and Sandy may just make it home within about a week or so. She will likely still have certain drains installed and will have to continue to feed via a PICC line. We’ll have considerable work to do with her here just to get her through the day…but it won’t be the hospital! (Thank God, then the cat will stop curling up with me at night. I keep worrying about rolling over on to her)

Through all of this last week, I managed to get sick. I contracted a wicked flu, which I have since learned that I got at the hospital. As anyone can guess, the last thing a transplant patient needs is a sick person in their room. Even someone with the sniffles could prove to be a fatal guest. I started to feel ill on Wed night while watching the Maryland – Duke game (curse ESPN for their “technical difficulties” with 2:17 left in the game!). I knew before the game was over that I would not be stepping foot in that hospital again until I was completely better. The flu lasted a solid (pardon the pun) four days. At the same time, I developed a staph infection in my nose. A sharp otolaryngologist friend of mine picked up on it when I mentioned that my nose was sore. Joe and his wife, Beth, know us well and have been in to see Sandy, so he understands the gravity of my having a skin infection. His nurses swabbed me and he put me on antibiotics. The infection responded right away and the flu is now just a bad memory. Between the two maladies, I had to stay away from Sandy for a week. I felt as crappy as could be from being sick, and then felt like I was not doing one thing to help Sandy. At least I had the sense to stay away, right? I think it is the Husband’s Oath that begins, “First, do no harm.”

Anyway, enough about me… Sandy’s energy is returning. Where she could only hold a conversation for 15 minutes or so last week, she can now talk for an hour or sometimes two (if the timing is right and she hasn’t just received one of her highly potent pain meds!). She still is not allowed to eat or drink anything, but this is not longer the issue that she thought it was. With this kind of progress, it is easy to imagine her coming home.