What a great day this was. It was last weekend while my parents were here. We went to City Walk and ate at Margaritaville. Chase and my father loved all the great Buffet decorations all over the restaurant. I was starting to feel better and was so happy to get out of the house.

Now for the unfortunate news...
I'm still on antibiotics for the hand since the pharmacy wrote the wrong dose on the bottle. Fortunately, I reacted to the half prescribed dose or I would have needed hand surgery! GRRR. Another reason why I love electronic medical record!

Chase started throwing up on Friday and I thought it could have been bad milk or something. He was acting fine otherwise, but did throw up 4 times that day. I knew that something had been going around his daycare,b ut he was not there for 3 weeks while I was recooperating. Denial is a great thing. Unfortunately Sunday morning at 3:30 am I woke to Dawson vomiting and that continued for hours. He didn't get out of bed until 4:30 pm when I started barfing and he needed to take care of baby Chase. We are better today then yesterday, but still not totally normal.

WORST OF ALL...
I got a frantic call from my sister today that my mom broke both her wrists. I am not clear if it is wrists or lower arms, but definately both of them. The ortho doc didn't come into the hospital to see her (not life threatening and it is Memorial Day - GRRRR). He wanted them to splint her up and make an appt for tomorrow. Very frustrating. Chase and I will be heading down to Boca this Friday-Tuesday so my sister and I can tak team and help her.

That is it. This our three bad things...no more!!! JUNE HAS TO GET BETTER.

Pray for my mom!

Ali

Flesh Eating Bacteria!
Yep, that is what the doctors told me yesterday. Very scary. They also said that I am so lucky that I went to the hospital when I did because it could have been so much worse. Just imagine those gory pictures on the internet you find when you google it. Too disgusting. I am so thankful that I went to work that morning and showed it to the nurse and physician I work with. They told me that I needed to go to my doctor an get antibiotics. Boy were they right!!!

The great news is that the ID doc will discontinue my oral and IV antibiotics THIS MONDAY! That means this PICC line can finally come out! I will be free! My hand is still a little sore and stiff. My arm is peeling from the infection. The swelling has gone down, but I probably won't e back to my new normal for a couple weeks. The redness is gone and I have not taken any pain meds since Monday! Praise the Lord!

I plan to return to work on Wednesday and I am looking forward to normalcy. My parents leave Sunday and have been a tremendous help. Chase is just as cute as can be. He is having a wonderful time playing ball with Brewster, my parents border collie.

Thanks again for all your prayers and well wishes.

Yesterday, we had a bit of a scare. My hand started to swell and become sore over the weekend. I even had to start taking the Percocet again starting on Sunday. I made an appt to see the ortho hand doc to check out my hand and check to see if an abcess was forming. He didn't think there was an abcess and picked off my scab (ewwww). He suggested that I see the ID guy since I may need a different antibiotic. The ID doc saw me right away and he freaked me out. He was very concerned that I was developing compartment syndrome. This would mean hospitalization and hand surgery. He started me on Clinda (oral) three times daily for 7 days and extended my IV Rocephin for another 7 days. he said he was puzzled as to why this was happening. I did have a rash all over my trunk over the weekend (now gone). He was not sure what that was all about either.

I was concerned because Chase started getting what looked like zits on his face, ear and hand. I showed the ID guy and he of course told me to show my pediatrician. Most adult guys won't touch kids. He said he takes pustules very seriously in children and Chase needed to be seen right away! So I made an appt with Dawn Andrew, his pediatrician. Before I had Chase, I worked with her at the hospital. She was a hospitalist at APH. Well, Dr. Andrew made me feel so much better about my condition. She knew more than the ID guy!!! She told me the rash was from the strep and that my new antibiotic regimen should do the trick. She also told me that Chase did not have pustules and that it was likely bug bites! Phew!!!

I got my dressing on my PICC line changed today. They do it once per week. For all you non medical people out there, a PICC line is an IV access that is permanently on my arm until I am finished with IV antibiotics. It goes in my arm directly to my superior vena cava (heart). Scary. You have to be very careful and clean when dealing with the line. I am looking forward to getting this line OUT!!!

3 doctors appts in one day is more than I ever want to do again. I now have a deeper understanding of what my patients go through. It sucks!!!

Thanks for all your prayers, phonecalls, flowers, gifts and well wishes. Keep praying. I am feeling better today than yesterday. It doesn't feel like I have acid on my hand anymore and I have not taken Percocet yet today. I think this Clinda has really turned things around. Praise God! I will keep you updated. I go to ortho and ID docs again on Thursday.

First Haircut!

Yesterday, Mimi and I took Chase to get his first haircut! His hair was getting long and he was starting to sport a mullet so we had to get that taken care of right away. Chase was so good and did not cry at all. He actually liked having his hair combed.

Don't mind the shiner and bum lip. He has started walking and had some spills. He's tough, he's a boy!

I still have IV antibiotics for another 5 days. I can't wait to put this all behind me. I visited with the Infectious Disease Doctor yesterday and he made it very clear how sick I truly was. I was very close to having my arm sliced open in several places to drain". I am feeling better every day. Dawson and I are going to go on a date this Saturday for a late anniversary celebration. I am looking forward to that.

Thank you all for your thoughts, prayers and well wishes.

Correction: It was group A step. Dawson told me that they cultured my nose and yes that is what is was. I was really out of it in the hospital and somethings were not clear to me until talking about it later.

I AM FINALLY HOME FROM THE HOSPITAL!!! This was definitely that worst week of my life. It started last Tuesday when I noticed a very small blister on the top of my hand. I scratched it and clear fluid came out of the blister. It did not hurt at that time so I didn’t pay much attention to it.

When I woke up the next morning, half of my hand was swollen and it hurt. I joked with Dawson that I must have gotten a spider bite and I was going to die!!!! I went on to work that day and showed my hand and to the physician and nurse to get their opinion. By then, it was even worse than it was when I woke up. Dr. Weatherly told me that I should make an appt with my primary care physician because it looked like I needed antibiotics. I made the appointment for later that day. I was just concerned that I was not going to be able to go on the two trips I had planned over the next two weeks.

The pain started getting worse and worse. It was now moving up to my elbow. I couldn’t stand it anymore so I went home to wait for my appt. I cried the whole way home. By the time I reached my primary care physician’s office, my fever was 103.6. I was in so much pain. I couldn’t even rip the toilet paper off the roll with my bad hand! My primary care looked at the infected arm and thought I really needed to go to the emergency room to get IV antibiotics. Woah Nelly…this meant it was really something serious.

I drove myself to the ER and asked Dawson to get Chase and have his mom watch him that night. It all went down hill from there. The pain was becoming unbearable. I was begging for pain medication because the pain was like nothing I had ever experienced before. It was all happening so fast. I was getting really scared that I was going to lose my arm or something worse.

I think I was finally getting my IV pain killers when Dawson got to the ER. I know I really scared him because I couldn’t control my shaking and I was moaning from the pain. I had to be admitted to the hospital for IV antibiotics and to determine the source of the infection.

I had so many things done to me (MRI, chest Xrays, PICC line placement for long term IV antibiotics). We don’t really know what happened. I could have been bitten by a spider or just got some sort of infection. I was convinced it was a spider bite from our weekend stay at Ft. Wilderness. They cultured the surface of the site and it came back positive with Group A Step. I mention that the SURFACE showed that because they could not get anything out of the wound. We all have Staph and Strep on our skin at any given time, but don’t necessarily react to it. So who knows if it is really Group A Strep or a spider bite. Honestly, I don’t even care anymore, I just want to get better.

Dawson was such a source of strength for me. He really took wonderful care of me. He really meant what he said on our wedding day when he would “take me in sickness and in health”. The poor guy had to guide me to the bathroom so many times, got vomited on, and was there for ANYTHING I needed him to do for me. I was so loopy from the pain and the drugs that I was hallucinating, falling asleep while drinking water, or falling asleep on the toilet. Through it all, he was right there with me. I am so thankful to have him as a husband. It’s kinda ironic that we spent our 6th wedding anniversary in the hospital and he even made that special for me.

It has been so difficult being away from Chase this whole time. I know that he was in good hands at his Nanna and Mammaw’s house, but I wanted to see him, smell him and hold him. I woke up Sunday crying because I missed him so much. The nurses said it would be ok for me to visit with him downstairs. He was too young to be exposed to the germs upstairs in the hospital. We had WONDERFUL brief visit, but enough to lift my spirits.

My mom comes today to take care of Chase and me for the next 2 weeks. Chase will finally come home today. I hear he is more of a walker than a crawler. It will be one great “mother and child reunion”. I have 9 more days of home IV antibiotics and many follow-up doctors appts. I was supposed to be leaving for CABO tomorrow! It is so great to be out of the hospital, but I am not out of the woods yet…

Thank you to all that has helped me, called me and prayed for me.