Fighting the Infection

Today Shirley made her third trip to the operating room. This time to change the "wound vac" (interesting article on this on Wikipedia) dressing and to debase some infected areas including the base of her sternum.  She's been in a good amount of pain tonight and the staff has been trying to balance pain control with keeping her from hallucinating -which can produce some frightening situations for some patients and they attempt to get out of bed or run and end up hurting themselves.

We (I've spent the last couple nights in the room with her) were awakened early this morning by the Resident from the transplant program to tell us that yesterday's CT scan revealed another build-up of fluid around the base of both lungs.  Apparently the small pigtail drain the inserted on Monday wasn't up to the task, so while under general anesthesia today, they put in two more full sized chest tubes (affectionately referred to by the staff as garden hoses).

When Shirley was first out of the transplant surgery and in ICU, I marveled at the number of tubes and hoses that were hooked up to help with her healing.  At first, there were eleven (four chest tubes, a Foley catheter, an epidural, oxygen, tracheal tube, arterial line, two IVs).  As these started to be removed, I commented to a nurse that it was good to see the tube count go down.  His response was "more tubes and the more doctors around is usually not a good sign".  But as Shirley's tube count goes back up, I take this as a good sign that they are aggressively working to treat the infection and to get her better.  The tube count now stands eight.

We're told the hospital stay will probably be at least another week and is likely to be on antibiotics for up to six weeks since the infection reached bone. 

Thanks to everyone for all the well wishes. I'm sorry I was not able to respond to each text and Facebook comment with a reply, but please know that my heart swelled with joy to know so many of you are thinking and praying for Shirley's speedy recovery.