Slowly recovering

Sorry for leaving everyone hanging! The last several days have been ROUGH. I keep planning to write an update, but I’m having trouble staying awake long enough to manage it! Typing clearly is also a bit more difficult than usual these days. But I’m gonna try!
 
Thank G-d overall the surgery went well! It took longer than expected, which of course was stressful for Katherine and my mom, but I think it went smoothly. The excellent news is, they found and removed a retained suture! That has very likely been home base for these pseudomonas infections for YEARS, so having it gone should be a game changer! I was SO HAPPY and relieved to hear that when I woke up!! Unfortunately, they did have to remove small pieces from 3 ribs and a small piece of lung as well due to infection. They’re still waiting for test results on the bone, but they had to be removed both because the infection had tunneled through them and because that was the only way to get to the abscess. The puss in the abscess and the sputum samples from my lungs did show pseudomonas, as expected.
 
One surprise is that they ended up putting some mesh in where they removed the bones. I was concerned about this, but they explained that this is dissolvable mesh, and that the structure of mesh is very different from sutures and doesn’t allow infections to get stuck the same way. My body had noticed the suture and formed a granuloma around it to wall it off, but what that actually ended up doing was walling the infection IN and preventing antibiotics from eradicating it. Apparently the body is less likely to notice mesh, and is also less able to wall it off due to the size and shape. So hopefully this mesh should provide some temporary protection in the gap where my ribs were, and then disappear before it can cause any problems.
 
Recovery has not exactly been a party. I came out of surgery with 1 large incision and 3 small incisions, all stapled shut, plus 2 large drain tubes and 1 JP drain (which I guess is 3 more incisions!). I’ve been getting IV antibiotics 9 hours a day, plus other random infusions such as Magnesium and Potassium when they don’t like the look of my daily bloodwork. I’m also not fully steady on my feet and am using a walker to get around. Figuring out pain control has been tricky. It’s really important to manage my pain, as I need to do deep breathing exercises and cough to clear out everything from the lavage (lung wash) I got during the bronchoscopy. For the first few days deep breaths and coughing were almost impossible due to the pain, but thankfully I can mostly manage it now. The problem is that most painkillers can suppress breathing, and they also make me extremely sleepy, and I’m not exactly doing deep breathing while I’m asleep. So we’re trying to find the balance between controlling my pain without knocking me out, and haven’t quite gotten there yet. My med cocktail also makes me have dreams bordering on hallucinations almost every time I close my eyes, and most of the time they’re reality based, so I keep getting confused about what conversations and experiences have actually happened versus which ones are all in my head. Not gonna lie, it’s been a difficult time!
 
But! I’m getting steadier on my feet and more able to walk day by day. One of the big tubes was removed yesterday, and we’re very hopeful that the other one can be removed tomorrow. My lungs are recovering well and I’m almost fully off supplemental oxygen. I’m getting there!
 
The goals for discharge are to get my pain under control, to get the last big drain tube removed, and to get me off supplemental oxygen (which I’ve almost accomplished). We also need to make sure my bowels finish waking up, since I really don’t need to end up back here with a bowel blockage like I did after transplant. My appetite being pretty much gone since surgery isn’t helping with that, but I’m trying to force myself to eat some solid food and get things moving. I’m still hopeful that I might manage to accomplish all that before the weekend and get home for Shabbos. Prayers and positive vibes are greatly appreciated!!