...in more ways than one.
Jace got baptized last Saturday. That morning it occurred to me that Jace's big day should go more smoothly than Brynlee's had. (We ended up in the ER the afternoon that Brynlee got baptized.) That thought pretty much immediately got shot down. Jared had fluid oozing out of his incision and had me look at it. As I wiped the pus away, I could see a big gaping hole in his incision. We knew that couldn't be good. At that point I was pretty sure we would be headed somewhere after the baptism - I was hoping the Instacare could handle it.
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| My two handsome guys! |
Jace did have a nice day, and it wasn't as dramatic as Brynlee's turned out to be. We were planning on going to dinner with Jared's family that night anyway, so our date night was just spent at the ER instead. The doctor at the ER didn't even touch Jared's head at all. He basically looked at it and said he was going to prescribe some antibiotics that would hopefully clear it up. He thought that it was an infected stitch and told us that we needed to go see Jared's neurosurgeon if it didn't clear up in a couple days. If you remember, we've heard the words "infected stitch" before. They were wrong last time, too!!
I was a little nervous about the whole thing because I was heading out of town with the kids Monday for a Family Reunion. Jared had to stay home to work (he had taken off 7 weeks recovering from surgery and had more than exhausted his time off). I should probably add here that it seems like everyone else I know that gets cancer lives it up by going on vacation after vacation. I've never understood that. Apparently we're the only ones who have to worry about finances and the responsibility of a job? Anyway, I felt guilty leaving him to work while we all had fun, but I'm trying to keep the kids' lives as normal as possible, and this is a vacation they've been excited for.
When I left Monday the infection didn't look any better. On Tuesday he texted me a picture of his head, and I told him he really needed to go see his neurosurgeon. I thought about posting the picture he sent me but it's probably too disgusting. So Wednesday he stayed home from work, called his neurosurgeon ALL day without returned phone calls. He finally heard from the nurse late in the afternoon, and she basically told him that the neurosurgeon wasn't in that day, and that there wasn't anything he could do. At that point my sisters were both insistent that he HAD to do something, and we told him to go to the ER. He called his dad to take him, and when they got half way there, the nurse called back and told him that the doctors were very much aware of his situation, that he was scheduled for a "clean up" surgery on Tuesday, and not to worry about it. So they turned around and headed home. I didn't know what to think when I heard they were putting him off until Tuesday. I figured they were probably dropping the ball! Either way, I was mad they weren't seeing him.
Thursday the nurse called again and changed her story. She told him to get to the ER. So he went to the ER, and NINE HOURS later he was admitted. So he didn't get admitted until Thursday night. Friday morning I came home to be with him and sent the kids to stay with my parents for the weekend.
At this point they have him on heavy antibiotics until the culture comes back. It takes 48 hrs to get those back, which means if they had done their job last week in the ER, we would've had the culture back 5 days ago and we could press forward. But now we have to wait until Monday before they do surgery. So he has to sit in the hospital bored to death until Monday. At this point they think it's the acrylic plate that got infected. They did a CT scan, so they don't think it's in his brain, they think it's just on the surface. So the plan is to let the antibiotics clean up the area for a couple days, then Monday he has to have a surgery to open up the incision, remove the plate and clean up the area, and replace the plate with a different one that is more breathable. If they go in and realize it's worse, the surgery will be more invasive. We're REALLY hoping it isn't in the brain!!! We've already dealt with that before, and it was awful!!!
So here we are, once again 9 weeks post-craniotomy surgery, dealing with another infection. And I believe this will make six surgeries in less than two years. To top it off, he was supposed to have another Avastin treatment yesterday, but they can't give it if he has an infection. So his clinical trial stuff has been put on hold as well. Just writing this last part is making me sick to my stomach.
This blog was meant to be an up-lifting, positive experience for me as well as those who read it. I feel like I never have any good news to report anymore! It's depressing, but I guess it shows the real picture of what people with cancer deal with.
