Rollercoaster ride

Pardon my language, but today has been a f***ing rollercoaster.
 
This morning my team came in and said that the stains (quick tests) came back negative, so I could go home while we wait for the results from the cultures (slower tests). Cultures can take weeks, so there was no point keeping me here when they didn’t even know which antibiotic to treat me with. I was THRILLED to FINALLY get out of here and get a bit of a break before starting IV antibiotics. Alas, the thrill was short lived. Barely 20 minutes later, just as I was finishing packing, I got a call letting me know that they unexpectedly got a result from the culture. Apparently the lumps are being caused by the usual suspect, my lifelong nemesis, pseudomonas. I should’ve known! So now I am NOT going home and am being started on IV antibiotics immediately. I won’t be here for the whole course, but the likelihood of pulling home care together before the holiday weekend is pretty slim. Maybe a miracle will happen, but otherwise I’ll be stuck here for YET ANOTHER holiday weekend.
 
This is the ABSOLUTE WORST time of year to get hospitalized. I recommend avoiding it at all costs.
 
This will likely be a lengthy course of IVs. Apparently it takes longer for antibiotics to penetrate abscesses because there’s no blood flow inside them. The infections are also close to the bone, so they want to be really thorough and make sure the antibiotics penetrate there too. So I might be on IVs for 6 weeks, which sucks. Then again, it doesn’t suck as much as a full year of antibiotics, which was one of the options if this was a mycobacterium. Silver lining?
 
Surgery is also up in the air right now. My surgeon doesn’t want to open me up until I’ve had a few weeks of antibiotics, and is actually hopeful that antibiotics alone will be enough and I won’t need surgery at all. The Infectious Disease team really wants the abscesses opened and drained because they’re concerned about the antibiotics being unable to sufficiently penetrate, and are very concerned about my pseudomonas becoming resistant to one of the only antibiotics I have left. The current plan is to reassess and make a decision after a couple weeks of IV antibiotics.

So here I am, still at HUP. I don’t think I’ve ever spent so much time sitting around waiting for things to happen during a hospitalization. Holiday hospitalizations are the WORST! But at least now we FINALLY have some answers and a treatment plan. Let’s all hope for no more drama so I can get out of here SOON!