On the Road to Recovery… and Home!

Day 12: I saw the doctor today and it looks like I will be headed home tomorrow. The trick, however, is that he wants a PIC line put into my arm so that I can have 2 more weeks of intravenous antibiotics. Turns out, the MRSA is sensitive to Vancomyacin, which can only be administered by IV. So, I will need to spend over an hour in the morning and again in the evening getting my meds. Thankfully I can do this in the comfort of my home, and not in a facility. After I get the PIC line, which was an amazing procedure (thanks to Con Nuygen, the best PIC line guy ever, so I “named” my PIC line after him!), I spent much of my time walking with and without crutches around the hospital. I even had a chance to sit outside (in my infectious disease garb, though). Oh, and did I mention that it’s cookie and lemonade day at the hospital? This place rocks!

Day 13: We are packing up to go home. The doctor has removed the bandage and is very pleased. He only has about 3 or 4 stitches to close it up, because he wants it to remain open for awhile to continue to “weep out” the “goo.” Surprisingly it doesn’t hurt. My biggest concern now is the MRSA, not the surgery scar. I could care less if it was a hole in my leg – heck, I have my leg! But if MRSA gets out of control, I could lose my life.

We are a bit challenged today, though, as we are trying to coordinate getting home and still getting my IV meds. I can’t miss a treatment, which is every 12 hours. How am I going to get from Vail, Colorado to California, which is a 15 hour drive?

As we hit the road at about 11 am, I get on the phone to the insurance company to find a place in Las Vegas that can administer the meds. We get permission from the doctor to miss 1 treatment only, so we decide to take the evening off. We drive to Vegas, stay at Planet Hollywood, get up early the next morning, head over to the IV facility (did you know they actually have places that administer just IV meds??). After about an hour and a half, we are back on the road headed home.

But before I tell you about what happens when I get home, let me just say that the IV facility was a real eye-opener. Here I was, feeling a bit depressed about having to administer the meds 2 times a day for 2 weeks. Shoot, this was going to take a chunk out of my social life! But while I was there, I met 2 women – one who was 29 with Multiple Sclerosis and one was in her 60’s with cancer. They will have to endure these treatments for the rest of their life. Suddenly my annoyance isn’t so annoying. Meeting them was such a blessing and I think about them often.