So shit.

I will try, in the interest of your eyes, to be as brief as possible.

Day one (monday.) We go to VA to have the existing hernia of 19 years checked, it has changed, swollen, largish and looks different. VA makes a referral to VA in Cleveland, draws bloodwork.

Day two. VA calls, says your white blood count is very high, go immediately to Cleveland or to nearest E.R.


We decide on nearest E.R as Cleveland is too far away having only one car and three small children.

E.R. Does CT Scan with resolution, Says “Wow, that's really big. You should go see a surgeon tomorrow.” It is a transverse colon herniation. The opening in the abdominal wall is about 4 inches and several more of his colon is hanging out his belly so to speak. We agree, and they say they will discharge him. I go get DH something to eat. He eats while waiting for discharge papers. ER doc calls up to surgery to see if surgeon is still here. He is. He comes down, looks at tests, CT Scan, comes into room, throws major fit cause DH is eating. DH tells him that it is his fault, not ER doc's fault.

Put's DH on a bowel prep regime.  Liquid Diet. Tells him to come to office immediately in morning.


Day Three . We do go to dr. first thing in morning. He prescribes something to turn his insides out and tells him if you are not pooping clear water by five pm, call me. Gives him antibiotics and says, short of a flamethrower, there is no way to disinfect bowel, but we are going to do our best to make sure if this perforates, the infection will be minimized.

Sends us home. Liquid diet. Bowel prep works. Dh is uncomfortable, but okay.

Day Four. Get to hospital at 10:30. Surgery is supposed to be at 12:30. At 3:30 they finally take him back. The kitchen in the hospital catches fire at about 5ish. That was fun. At 7 pm I am tweaking. Badly. At 7:30 the surgeon comes out and talks to me. He says it was pretty bad. There were multiple herniations. It took 77 stitches (on the INSIDE( and a piece of mesh 14 cm by 8 cm to rebuild his abdomen wall, with 40 staples on the outside to close the abdomen. I take the girls and head home. They have been very good through all this. We are all very tired. I sneak them into recovery room to see that Pappy is really okay.  We get home, they all start crying, they want to be taken right back to hospital to spend the night in Pappy's room. I finally get them to sleep.

Day Five. Friday. Go back over to hospital. His White Blood Count is up. They say that they just won't draw labs tomorrow so that way he can go home? They are talking about discharging him on Saturday???? Helloooooo. They draw blood. Me and the girls go home.

Day six. Saturday. I am driving to hospital, but have to make side trip to pick up Calamity and take her and baby home. They are both sick. Both my girls woke up with sore throats. Crazy assed weather. Cold one day and 70 the next. DIL is at hospital with DH. I am texting. She tells me that his White Blood Count is up but they are talking about discharging him. I flip.

I tell her to talk to his nurse. She says she doesn't know who it is. I call hospital and find out.

 

I tell her. Look. My husband has already had MRSA (Methylcillin Resistant Staph = superbug everyone hears about on the news) twice before. The last time was in 2001, at the same hospital. He has had Osteomylitis (staph infection inside the bone) three times. Do not piss around. If he has a high WBC, it is probably MRSA. You must tell Dr.

She does. Problem is, the surgeon following him over weekend is NOT our surgeon, but his partner. She doesn't know my husband's history. I do. She does nothing.

The other doc following him for the non surgical stuff, I happen to see (and know quite well) when I walk by the nurses desk after getting there. I whip around and nab him and tell him. His eyebrows go up quite impressively. He looks up the labs (the WBC was 27,000) and says We will start him IMMEDIATELY on Unasyn..a fairly new combination drug used on MRSA with quite a lot of success. I feel better. His JP drain is still draining quite a lot. (bad).

I go back and tell DH. He thinks I am overreacting. I am not. Trust me on this one. I am the walking medical records file for him. There is just nothing about any of his surgeries, accidents, treatments, etc that I do not know.

Day Seven. Sunday. WBC is still going up, albeit slowly. The Doctor that started the Unasyn adds Vancomycin. Vanc is the 'drug of last resort' to treat MRSA. It is what they use when nothing else seems to be kicking it's ass. They are still continuing the Unasyn, but adding the Vancomycin.  There IS a strain of MRSA known as VRSA which means Vancomycin will not work on it. So that's why they are continuing the Unasyn too.

8 pm. I just talked to him. He was on his second bag of Vanco. Then another bag of Unasyn. His JP drain seems to be lessening in the amount of drainage (good). They will draw blood in am. Surgeon comes back tomorrow. His family lives in Indiana, he commutes and goes home every other weekend. He is quite brilliant. I will be glad when he gets back.

I am glad that I flipped. MRSA isn't something you piss around with. If it DOES turn out to be MRSA (won't know till the culture comes back Tuesday) and they had waited another day, it could have been too late.

Will update all more as I find it out.  I haven't gotten a damn thing packed. I have gotten the electric, gas and cable arranged for.  maybe this week I can get some stuff packed. We are supposed to move June 2nd. Dave won't be able to lift anything, even supposing they let him come home, for at least three months.