One week of freedom!

It’s only temporary, but for one glorious week I am FREE!
 
Last week, after 8 straight weeks of IV antibiotics, I finally reached my limit. I had noticed some pain and swelling under my armpit on my left side, which we assumed was a swollen lymph node due to the infection. At first the pain was mild, but then for a few days it became more significant and started interfering with my already limited and disrupted sleep. Between not sleeping decently for 8 weeks and then waking up in pain, I was DONE. I reached out to my transplant team and told them that I desperately needed a break before surgery, since I’m expected to do up to 6 more weeks of IV antibiotics afterwards. I’m usually a pretty diligent and compliant patient, but I let them know that a break was not negotiable, and either they told me how many days to take off, or I would start skipping doses so I could get some sleep. They convinced me to hang on for a few more days until we could get sputum culture results to make sure that the nasty, multi-resistant strain of pseudomonas in the abscess had not gotten into my lungs. By then the pain had subsided to a manageable level, so I was willing to wait just a little longer.
 
We got the results yesterday, and not only was there no multi-resistant nastiness, there was NO pseudomonas whatsoever! I know it will come back since my sinuses remain infected and will drip pseudomonas back into my lungs once I’m off antibiotics, but it was still a great result for now. And that means for the first time in 9 weeks I am FREE from the horrible infusion schedule! I still have my PICC line, but I don’t need to run any antibiotics through it for a full week. Which means I won’t be chained to an IV pole for 9 hours a day, and we can FINALLY get a full night’s sleep! Katherine and I are so excited!
 
I also had a regularly scheduled follow up appointment at transplant clinic yesterday, and my lung function was an amazing 101%! Even though this abscess situation has been pretty terrible, it’s nice to see that at least my lungs are still doing great! Overall we’re all just waiting for surgery now, as the abscess is the only pressing issue. They’re also going to do a bronchoscopy while I’m under just to make sure everything is ok in there after randomly coughing up a blood clot a few weeks ago. At this point a bronch is really the least of my worries, and since I’ll be unconscious anyway, what do I care?
 
On Tuesday I will resume IV antibiotics for a couple days to get me ready for surgery, which is scheduled for Thursday the 29^th. Though I’m very much not looking forward to a likely painful recovery process, I AM glad to finally get surgery over with. It has been a LONG ROAD. This all started with a wonky routine x-ray at the end of September, followed by an even more concerning CT scan mid-October, and then a month of thinking I had cancer and a failed biopsy before finally realizing it’s actually an abscess in November. Then I started IV antibiotics, which I have now been on for nine full weeks. I am TIRED, and I still have a long way to go, as I will need additional weeks of IV antibiotics after surgery. Both Katherine and I are EXHAUSTED!! But I’m starting to see the faintest glimmer of light at the end of this very long, dark tunnel, and am hopeful that sooner than later the current round of medical issues will finally be DONE. And I’m sure everything will be much easier to deal with once I get some sleep!