Well, here I am in Bed 1164 at NYU - my home since Tuesday.
Dr. Roland decided, based on the photo I emailed him Tuesday morning, that we needed to take "the next step" which was admitting me to the hospital again. Got into my room by 2 PM and got situated. Then, the procession of interns, residents, fellows, and doctors began...
Mom and Dad stayed at the Northern Compound to look after things there, while Willie came in and settled at Chez Lee on E. 50th Street...
Sparing you all the gory details - the docs took a good "sample" from my incision and sent it off to be cultured - basically, me head in a petri dish... In the interim, the Infectious Disease (nice title, huh?) doctor, Dr. Louie, put me on a couple of broad spectrum IV antibiotics. Dr. Roland put me on the surgery schedule for Weds and we all settled in to wait.
Kura came by for a visit; then Willie and I settled in the patient waiting room and watched American Idol - date night at NYU.
On Weds, Dr. Roland was pleased that the infection seemed to be slightly better, so at about 3 PM, made the decsion to cancel the planned surgery and stay with the IV antibiotic regimen. Yay!! I was definitley NOT looking forward to having another surgical procedure, even a minor one.
After dispatching Willie to find food for me (I had been fasting since dinner on Tuesday night), I asked Dr. Roland if it might be possible for me to see a facial therapist as long as I am captive here - bless that man, he got right on it!
Today started with the usual early AM visits from the residents and interns, followed by Dr. Roland's Fellow, followed by Dr. Roland - all pleased with the way things are looking. I'm not cured, but at least it is not getting worse which is great. A little later the facial therapist came in to see me, which was a bright spot. He gave me some simple exercises to do 3 times a day - and cautioned me not to get discouraged if I don't see any improvement for the first few weeks! I will attack this with a vengence as I really do want to give my face every opportunity to get back to normal.
The next visitor of the morning was Dr. Louie with the news that the culture isn't yielding the answers he was looking for in terms of a specific identity of the "bug" - he said that he'll continue to treat this with a broad spectrum IV antibiotic. Which means that I'll be coming home with a "picc" so that I can administer an IV twice a day at home. Apparently, he will arrange for a nurse to come by the house several times to draw blood also so that he can monitor things. I'll need to come back into NYC to see him before the PICC comes out. This all set me back a bit, as I guess I was hoping that I'd be able to get by with oral antibiotics. However, I guess Willie and I will become adept at IVs now - one more thing for the old resume... :)
Willie is back in NJ today taking his dad from the rehab facility to his surgeon's office - hopefully this will give them the green light to start the next phase of PT which will enable him to start weight-bearing therapy. One step closer to coming home for Phil. I think Willie will be driving back into NYC tonight, with the hope that I will be released tomorrow morning.
Well, it certainly has been an eventful week - not exactly in the way I had hoped ... I am hoping for a very quiet and uneventful holiday weekend! I could use some patio time ...
Well, that's it from Bed 1164 for today - hopefully the next post will be from home...
No comments:
Post a Comment