ProfessorTomoe

It's pretty much a lock that I'm not going to be discharged to go home any time soon. Instead, I'm getting sent to a Long-Term Acute Care hospital. There, the doctors will be able to monitor my antibiotic serum levels more closely than they ever would at home. (I've been flirting with toxic levels of vancomycin.) They'll also be able to continue managing my pain with Dilaudid, something they can't do at home. I'm probably going to be there for a minimum of two weeks. Come to find out from talking to the infectious disease doctor that the vancomycin they've been giving me has been aimed at treating me for a possible MRSA infection. You see, when I was hospitalized back in December 2020, I had a MRSA infection that was confirmed in a toe that got amputated. They can't confirm MRSA in this toe, since there are no open wounds - they'd have to cut the toe open and swab the inside, which they're not about to do. Therefore, they're going with my medical history and treating me for MRSA as a precaution. I'll post another update if I get more info on the LTAC hospital later today.

This is true. Okay, I'll post here as well, as long as I'm not pissing anyone off. Let me know when that starts to happen.

@mlooney, I know you're following my updates on Facebook. For the sake of trying not to be redundant, I'd like to know who else is doing the same. I don't want to overload the forum unless there are those of you who aren't already seeing my hospital updates on Facebook. That is, if you're still interested ...

The smoke wizard turned out to be Jay.

Negative is good for my body, but bad for figuring out WTF is going on with my toe re: the pain and swelling.

https://www.egscomics.com/egsnp/teddgameopinions-031 What do you mean, "Keep going?"

Nope, didn't help. I'm back in the hospital with more swelling and level 8 pain (on a 1-10 scale). Went to the ER Monday night and got admitted around 4:30 a.m. Monday morning. Spent most of the time waiting for test results to come back, all of which were negative. The doctor admitted me to control the pain.

Unfortunately, she's still pampering me. I had a setback yesterday. Took my sock off for a routine inspection of the affected big toe, and found that it was badly swollen again, as were both of my legs. She ordered me to sit up on the sofa with my legs elevated for the rest of the day.

Whoever it was, it was a "them" - plural.

It's official: I'm home. I still have to undergo therapy via two IV antibiotics, but that's going to be handled at home, not in a hospital. A home health worker is going to come out and take care of that for us. What they're not going to take care of is the Dilaudid shots - those go bye-bye. In their place are my regular 4x daily oxycodone and 15 days' worth of lidocaine patches for my shoulder. I want to thank all of you for your support while I was in the hospital. All of the kind words - they made a difference. Thank you.

We've kept her for close to a year now. She's officially part of the household.

Update 3:00 p.m.: I've now officially been told that I don't have a bone infection in my big toe. This is good news, since it means I only have to be on antibiotics for two weeks instead of six. It also puts me one day closer to discharge: the earliest I'll go home is tomorrow (Friday), but it's more likely that I'll be going home on Saturday. My shoulder still hurts. I've been told that I damaged some tendons in there somehow. I'm supposed to go to a shoulder orthopedist when I get home and have a steroid injection done. The doctors have switched one of my antibiotics to a narrower spectrum type. They've also ordered an iron infusion for me this afternoon to combat my iron deficiency and anemia. One downside to all the prescription progress: they've cut back on my Dilaudid dose in an effort to get me ready to go home. Feh. I'm just going to have to live with a little more pain for a few days, that's all.

This is for you if you're on Facebook. One of our cats, "Pretty Girl" (we didn't name it), chases her tail every night. It's almost like watching a snake chasing its own tail - she's that flexible. Watch for the complete somersault near the end of the following video: https://www.facebook.com/508035798/videos/558013158911822/

Hospital Update Wednesday 7/15/2021: Finally, what appears to be some good news. My white blood cell scan looks like it has come back negative. I say "looks like" because I haven't officially been told this by a doctor yet; I've read it from the test results page of the hospital's Patient Portal website. If I'm correct, it means I won't have to have my big toe's hardware removed. I also think that it means I'll be on antibiotics a shorter length of time. The latter I won't be absolutely sure of until the doctors fill me in on the result. My toe isn't as flamingly angry-looking as it has been, however, it still hurts quite badly. Add to that the fact that I've apparently popped my right shoulder while maneuvering in bed, and you get the result that I'm still in enough pain to warrant the use of Dilaudid. The net sum is a paragraph loaded with no fun. On the anemia front, the doctors ran another round of blood tests yesterday. According to them, I'm still anemic. They did *not* test me for iron, though. I still don't know what, if anything, they're going to do to me for this. Through all of it, my wife has been a saint. She's put up with my pains and infection without a gripe, other than to say she's bored (hell, *I'd* get bored sitting next to me all day, too!). She's brought me treats to keep my spirits up, has beaten the utter crap out of me at the card game of Gin, and has become the world land speed record holder at moving my behemoth of a laptop off of my patient table and back again. She deserves a Thank You note at least. If you want to send her one, PM me for our contact info. I'll post another update when I get more details on the testing and the anemia. Stay tuned.

Loopy from the ribs? I'll bet! That must have been one hell of a rack of ribs! Glad to see you're okay. Welcome to the Polyp Removal Club!

Hospital Update Monday 7/12/2021: I spoke to my podiatrist's partner doctor this evening (my podiatrist himself is on vacation), and he described my toe as "very angry." To make a long story short, he's going to run a white blood cell scan on me. He said that's where they take some of my white blood cells, "tag" them (I'm guessing radioactively), and then inject them back into me and trace where they go. If they concentrate around my toe, then there's a strong possibility that I might have a bone infection, which would mean they'd have to remove the screw they implanted to fix my hammertoe and try to get the thing to heal naturally. On the other hand, if the white blood cells *don't* concentrate around my toe, then it would mean I just have something called "cellulitis," or a soft tissue infection, which they'd treat just as they're treating it now. In either case, they're going to have to scan me with some sort of equipment to see where the tagged white blood cells go. That'll have to be done over the course of a couple of days, so that means I'm not leaving the hospital any time soon. In other news, somewhat related to the above, I'm going to have something called a PICC line inserted into my left arm tomorrow morning. That's a larger version of an IV line that stays in your arm for a longer period of time and allows the doctors/nurses/techs to draw blood as well as give fluids and medicines from the same site. It hurts like hell going in, but in general it's slightly more comfortable than an IV once it's inserted, plus there's the added benefit that you don't have to get poked every time someone wants to draw blood from you. It's more or less worth it, especially over a long period of time. Speaking of blood, there is one other issue that the doctors are checking into. As it turns out, I'm anemic. I've also got an iron deficiency. We don't know why I'm anemic, but it sure explains why I've been so tired lately (aside from the infection). My wife has been cleared to bring up my multivitamin-plus-iron supplement from home so I can take it while I'm hospitalized, but that alone isn't going to fix the anemia or the deficiency. The podiatrist partner, who is taking point on my treatment now, says he may call in another doctor to take care of this problem. We shall see. Sorry for the long update, but it's been a very busy couple of days. I'll have more info for you as I get it. In the meantime, thanks to everyone who bought a copy of my "Ant Farm Melee" song since yesterday. I really do appreciate it!

https://www.egscomics.com/egsnp/teddgameopinions-028 Actually, the collective noun is a "gaggle."

Here we go again. I've been admitted to the hospital for complications from my big toe surgery. I had the stitches taken out on Friday. At that time, my toe and left leg above and below the gauze wrapping looked extremely swollen, like a tourniquet had been wrapped around the middle part (the technical term is "pitting edema"). However, that was all that was wrong - there were no signs of infection. The podiatrist sent me home with instructions to wear a compression stocking starting Saturday (yesterday) and to elevate the foot. My wife put the compression stocking on my left leg yesterday morning. I wore it up until about 2pm, at which point I was in the middle of a nap when a sudden wave of pain woke me up. My toe was being hit by throbbing, stinging pains. I took off the compression stocking and saw that my toe was red and swollen, and when I pressed on it, it stayed red - signs of an infection. To make a long story short (too late), I was told by a doctor on call to go to an emergency room. I went to the one for the hospital where I had the surgery in the first place. Once there, the doctor quickly verified the infection, and furthermore determined that it was running up my left leg. (Since that time, my left hand has started to swell, as have my lymph glands under my jaw.) She admitted me to the hospital and began giving me IV antibiotics, four different ones in all. Right now, I'm on dilaudid for the pain in my toe and leg, which makes typing this up rather difficult. I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. As Bill the Cat used to say, "Ack oop phbbtt."

https://www.egscomics.com/comic/balance-040 Dog magic???

https://www.egscomics.com/egsnp/teddgameopinions-029 GOOSE GOOSE GOOSE FORM! FORM! FORM!

We'll stroll again into the parkAnd goose the statues in the darkIf Joan of Arc can take it why can't you?Buffalo Bill next time I passI'll stick my finger in his eye :-)If Buffalo Bill can take it why can't you?

https://www.egscomics.com/egsnp/teddgameopinions-027 Honk.

Consider couch thrown.

Mrs. Prof cooked up some angel hair pasta tonight. She served it with spaghetti sauce & meatballs, plus some great sourdough bread from Costco. Nom.

https://www.egscomics.com/comic/balance-038 Not fishing at all.