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| stitch-free! |
I got my stitches out on 11/29. I can sleep on my right side and stomach now and being able to shift into any position at will has done wonders for my sleeping. Yay!
Tuesday marked three weeks since my second surgery. As I wrote that last sentence, I realized that my last blog update was before surgery #2. I guess I'll need to backtrack...
My chest incision was not healing well, this much I knew. And I knew that my head incisions were a little suspicious and weren't cleaning up like I'd hoped after I got my staples out on November 1. On November 4, I was in meeting with the study people and I asked Dr Enisa (who can do anything) if she could get me in to see the neurosurgery people to have them check me out. They put me on antibiotics (Levaquin) and scheduled me to come back in a week. Flash forward to 11/11 - Matt and I are in meeting with my neurosurgeon and he says all three of my sites are infected and I need surgery. The next day. Uh...
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| surprise! another surgery! |
...so, on November 12 I went in for surgery #2, to debride the areas, treat the infection, stitch me back up, etc. And I was just starting to grow back my hair! I was supposed to be in the hospital for a night; instead I was there for four. At some point in there I turned 28, too. I still mess up my age sometimes because I was pretty high on pain meds on my actual birthday (the nurses sang me Happy Birthday, which was pretty dang nice of them). They even put in a PIC line to send me home with six weeks of IV antibiotics. Getting the PICC
hurt (it took the person multiple tries and she kept bumping into the sides of my veins). My right arm was sore and bruised for weeks. But just when I thought I was going to be hosting home health aides and spending about six hours a day hooked up to an IV, the neurosurgeon's PA discovered that the study would pay for me to get Zyvox instead, a freakishly expensive and effective oral antibiotic ($90 per pill, two pills a day). They were able to take out the PICC and I got to go home. It was like surgery #1 all over again except the pain pills I went home with weren't as strong. I was as helpless and weak as a newborn kitten and my amazing family again swooped in to took care of me (I am very lucky to have them!).
I've had two post-op meetings with the neurosurgeons, and they are very pleased with my healing this time around. I'm just over halfway through my antibiotics course. My stitches came out on 11/29 and I am relieved to have those spiky things out of my head and chest!
Now, the obligatory gory pictures will follow... :)
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| INFECTION! (chest incision, three week post-surgery #1) |
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| chest incision, four weeks post-surgery #2 |
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| PICC |
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| Post-surgery #2 (I like taking pictures. They are going in my brain surgery scrapbook.) |
