ProfessorTomoe

A delicious pear, courtesy of @The Old Hack 's fruit basket. Very delicious, in fact.

I'm writing from room 211 in Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, Rockwall, Texas. My swollen feet and lack of equilibrium have landed me in here. I'm on two different IV antibiotics (Zosyn and Vancomycin) that have to be infused 3-4 times a day. This is all thanks to what they're now calling "cellulitis," a bacterial skin infection. How they let it get this far without catching it I'll never know. They're looking to move me to a skilled nursing center as soon as they can get approval from my insurance company. Until then, it's hospital food, needle pokes, and mass interruptions every two hours. These past two months have been very hard. I could use a flower or two.

Going to two doctors today. First to my pain management doctor for a med check, then to my family doctor for a much more complicated appointment. You see, in addition to the BP problems, I'm developing upper respiratory infection symptoms despite being on two of the strongest antibiotics that are made. Also, last night, my right foot decided to swell up like a balloon. I'm confused as all get-out. What the smeg is going on with me?

Had more problems with low blood pressure at a subsequent infectious disease doctor appointment. They were going to draw blood, but when they saw my BP was 105/40, they wound up giving me a half liter of saline instead. I e-mailed my regular doctor and told him I was dropping my blood pressure medicine. I'm now supposed to monitor my BP (on a brand-new Omron BP652 unit, which will replace the crappy CVS brand unit I had) and set an appointment on Wednesday next week if the symptoms continue. Oh, and try to keep Gatorade in business while I'm at it.

My son ate Jon St. John's nachos. If you're familiar with the Duke Nukem 3D series of games, you'll have heard Jon—he's the voice of Duke Nukem. Well, my son and I were supposed to meet with him at the Let's Play convention in Irving, TX this past weekend and give him some more of my Calibrations CDs to give away. We'd agreed to meet up at some point during the convention. The story takes place at lunch, right after we'd sat down at a round table that was just clearing out. The café was packed. We had just started eating when a man and a woman came up and asked if they could join us. That man and woman were Jon St. John and his manager. I thought they were doing it intentionally, so I said, "Sure!" I rose, extended a hand, and said, "If I'm going to shake your hand, I'd better well do it standing." He looked at me and said, "Who are you?" We finally figured out our identities and exchanged greetings. During lunch, Jon got miffed at the café staff over their nachos. He likes crunchy nachos that you can dip into the cheese, but they'd poured cheese all over his chips, making them soggy. My son had also ordered nachos, but had dry chips. He offered to swap with Jon, who after a bit of hesitation, accepted. Later on, Jon told my son, "You made my lunch." So, my son ate Jon St. John's nachos.

It got better after a few hours. I saw the doctor later that day and told her about it. She told me to call the nurse during the week or 911 during the weekend if it happens again, since it might be a sign of a lethal blood clot. I haven't had any pain since. In other news, I've had low blood pressure lately (105/54 at the infectious disease specialist), and I've been thinking it's due to the diuretic I'm on for edema in my legs. I sent my regular doctor an e-mail about it, and he advised me to lay off the diuretic for a few days to see if my BP comes back up.

Don't know what I did overnight, but I woke up with excruciating pain (8.5) in my PICC line path, especially my shoulder. Couldn't even lift my pills to my mouth at first. It's leveled off, but typing is still painful. I sleep on the sofa (Mrs. Prof snores LOUDLY and the cats have claimed my spot, which I've donated), so I don't toss and turn much at night. That shouldn't have caused so much pain, though. Please, oxycodone, kick in!

Mrs. Prof laughed, since she's here almost all the time with me. It's going to take another fall to convince her that I need one, I fear.

I fell last night. Messing around at bedtime (keep it clean), I jumped on the comforter and laid there for a while. When I tried to get my footing off the bed, my feet came out from under me. I landed on my knees, which is never a good thing. I got turned over and eventually got my right knee under me, which allowed me to get up. Time on ground: around 10 minutes. I am officially a fall risk.

The at-home infusions have begun. It's a little bit of a clusterfark, since we've had to follow the instruction sheet both times and Mrs. Prof is loathe to follow instruction sheets. This is my bloodstream, though, so we're doing it right, for Pete's sake. Here's a photo of what's required in order to get the process going: The two egg-shaped things are actually my antibiotic pumps. No hanging bags of fluid anymore - just follow the instructions, and the eggs will pump the medicines into the PICC line inlets. In addition, there are saline flushes, heparin flushes, alcohol wipes, and a vial of one antibiotic that has to be mixed with saline before it's inserted into one of the eggs. Once the infusion gets going, it takes around 30 minutes for the drugs to be pumped into me. After that, we do a saline flush, a heparin flush, and cap it off with an alcohol cap. Procedure over. Another thing I found out: I can't lift anything heavier than 10 pounds (4.5 kg) with my left arm (the one with the PICC line in it) for the entire six weeks.That's going to be hard to work around. Oh yeah—the drugs being infused into me are Cubicin and Invanz. I've linked both (the Invanz link is a PDF). Both are strong antibiotics that I hope will knock out the bone infection in my toe.

Believe me, I get this with both halves of my brain. It's always worse when it's happening to yourself, of course.

The story of how things went yesterday is too long, so here's my blog post: https://dleejackson.lbjackson.com/2018/07/i-certainly-didnt-picc-this/

I've just returned from the infectious disease specialist. Here's the deal: I'm going to have to go into the hospital on Friday to have a PICC line inserted. Immediately after that, I go back to the infectious disease specialist's office and pick up a week's worth of supplies. I will then have to infuse myself daily with two antibiotics through the PICC line. I'm not sure if each drug will take 30 minutes or if both drugs together will take 30 minutes, but in either case it's something I'm going to have to do for the next six weeks. I don't know how I'll do it, but it's got to be done. Man, they are taking my toe extremely seriously!

Update: I have an appointment scheduled with an infectious disease specialist on Wednesday, July 18th at 9:30 a.m. CDT. The damned referral secretary first tried to hook me up with a wound care specialist, which would have done no farking good. How is that supposed to help a case of osteomyelitis? I got her straight on the subject and she fixed things, finally getting me set with the right doctor. I hope.