So, for all of you who have been waiting to hear about whether or not I ever got the chocolate cup cake or not. I did, as a matter of fact I got an even dozen. I called up my honey at work and told him my desires and he fulfilled them on his way home. Those cupcakes made me feel loved even if they were little brown frosting covered bullets or coffin nails if you like. I ate four of them when he brought them in the door. They were small about 3 bites a piece. Funny how a little store bought chocolate cupcake goes a long way in realizing comfort in an awful situation. I threw away the last one yesterday, I have moved on to really moist glaze covered chocolate bundt cake, they sell them has half a cake, I am still working on it, simple pleasures for a simply complex woman.
I am feeling much better in terms of my physical healing- my wound has shrunk down to a fraction of its former size, if I don't wear anything that touches it, I don't think about it during the day unless I bump my tummy on something or a cat leaps on to my lap. While I am experiencing all sorts of sharp and dull aches and pains in my lower gut throughout the day, it has only bordered on the type of pain that sent me to the hospital in the first place a couple of times. I have more energy and motivation than I did a week ago before the antibiotics were switched and I have been able to do a few errands on my own and more with Doug. I have even fixed supper two nights in a row and administered IVC to Doug on those nights. Stop the insanity!!! My diet is all over the place, I think I feel better with more nutritious raw smoothies and foods, but my gut hurts and I eat some cooked food to calm it and then I am so nauseated that I feel like puking for a couple of hours at night. I am trying to stop the heavy duty narcotic pain killers because I have been on them for 19 days and that scares the shit out of me. I will try to use some Advil today and see if that does the trick, though realistically I had surgery only 12 days ago and have had a whopping infection ever since.
OK folks, just got a phone call back from my primary care doc who cultured this wound a week ago today- the good news is that my body is definitely fighting and just barely winning the infection battle, the bad news is that the bugs that grew out of the wound are ones that you get from being in the hospital, they are the ones that stick around after you've cleaned all surface with antibacterial cleaners. And lo and behold they are resistant to all 4 of the antibiotics that I have been placed on since my discharge from the hospital. I have one more antibiotic that I am going to be put on in hopes of not going back on IV antibiotics. Thankfully, we already have a filled prescription for the Cipro (which by the way there is a chance that I might have a cross sensitivity to because I am allergic to a sister drug) I have started it, put away the other two drugs and feel a little less like a lazy ass for not wanting to do much but sit in the chair or better yet lay in bed and do absolutely nothing. I guess the fact that pus is still leaking constantly from my abdomen is a good enough sign but this girl needs to be clubbed with reality sometimes. Worst case scenario, this would fistulate and I end up going to surgery again to resect the fistula. For the medical virgins of the audience a fistula is when a tract forms like a tunnel between two places where should be no connection, in my case from my inner abdomen to the outside world. As I write I am struck with the utter hilarity of my tragedy of errors. For whatever reason my gut rebels against me or as someone more enlightened might look at it, my gut not so subtly reminds me to let go of my shit and take it easy. This attack alone with its severity carries a mortality rate of 50-70% when it presents with the ferocity that mine did. Then just in case I hadn't gotten the message, my appendix ruptures as I am starting feel better from the initial attack. In and of it self not that unusual I imagine but come on, I was already in the hospital and had been for a week! Just when I think that it can't get any worse- my belly turns hard, red and hot right where they pulled my rotten appendix thru my belly button, this while on two different IV antibiotics!! I get put on the strongest antibiotics that they have in their arsenal, the infection starts to resolve and I get sent home the morning after my child saw me in the hospital and was certain that I might die given how awful I looked! My wound blows up again, mind you not as big as initially but but enough that all I could think of was keeping everybody and everything away from it. Then it starts draining pus and blood, hmmmm.... wonder if something is wrong? Could it be that the antibiotics that were working should have been left in place to do the job even if it meant that I would need to keep my PICC line in and administer them to myself at home? I'm thinking yes. Had that perfectly reasonable thing happened, had the hospital not been so eager to get me out so that they didn't waste insurance money on actually taking care of all my needs I might be feeling a little more in the pink today. To add insult to injury they called two days after my discharge to tell me that I was responsible for about $925.00 of my my hospital bill, how would I like to take care of that right now, Master Card or Visa? Like I said, sometimes I need to be smacked a good one to stop and learn. So I am now on the correct antibiotic for the infection, I still don't feel like doing much but I feel a little vindicated in my malaise. I also had an appointment with the surgeon who thinks that I should get yet another CAT scan just to see how my sigmoid is fairing after its tremendous upset. The thought of drinking a quart of vaguely mint flavored barium and having yet another technician poked my reticent veins to fill with radioactive iodine so I can lie in a cold metal tube holding my breath while being exposed to the radiation of 50 mammograms makes me want to throw up and m just shoot myself in the head. So I did take the liberty of discussing this with my PCP, who thought that having a CAT scan to see what is happening in my guts when the pain is reduced, the pipes are functioning and I still have a bad infection was a very dumb idea, Thank you Lord. Well so that the day is not a total waste of daylight, I am going to take the dog to camp, drop off a library book and return some videos. But not much else unless I get a shot of inspiration........ maybe after my nap.
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