So you know Doug has a catheter. And he's been having fever off and on for several days but not higher than 100.6.............until Thursday.
Thursday his temp kept creeping up plus he was having a "yellowish" discharge (sorry if tmi!) I called Dr Treptow's office and was told that he needed to be seen in the office if temp got to 101.5 and the discharge was normal for his type of surgery.
So, I went and got my hair cut. When I got home his temp was 102.2. So I called again. This time she called Dr T and he wanted us to get a C.T. scan, cbc and urinalysis. When we got to Mercy I got him a wheelchair as he could hardly walk. They got him right in for the blood draw and urinalysis was easy, dump a little from the bag! The C.T. scan....another story. He had to drink 2 containers of contrast over 2 hours. The first one went fairly well, we found an empty loveseat so he could lay down as they want the 2nd one drank in the 2nd hour. 5:30 was the magic time and he got in fairly quickly. It took them 4 pokes to get the needle in for the contrast. His right arm looks like I beat him! Doug HATES blood draws, I'm not kidding, HATE. :)
After the scan he just needed to lay down so there was a clean empty bed in the radiology area and I just told him, "get on there." They didn't mind, especially after they saw that he had a lot of infection in the pelvic area. Additionally there was a "disruption" in the rectal repair site. (Big and even bigger bummer!) I spoke with Dr Treptow on the phone and he said he was to be admitted and schedule a procedure to insert a drain to get the infection out. He also ordered iv antibiotics, blood draw etc. His port was accessed and it was a little cranky last night as it didn't want to draw very well. He had to have blood drawn out of his arm for the "suspected" sepsis. (See above "HATE word:)
I went home Thursday night around 1030, packed a few things hung out with Eric, washed Doug's favorite bead pillow, and got up at 4:30 this morning. When I got here he hadn't slept much at all (yeah, same here:) and still felt horrible. I didn't have Eric go to school today, he was having a stressful time last night and knew he wouldn't be able to concentrate anyway. When I got here they still didn't have a time for the procedure.
About 9am they came in and said they would be taking him down soon so I called Eric to come hang with me.....since he wasn't in school! They took him down for the procedure about 9:15 and he got right in so I knew about when they started. It was to take 45 min to an hour.
Eric and I came up to the floor and sat in Family Waiting at the end of our hall so we could watch for him. After 2 hours I was getting a littlllee nervous wondering what the heck was going on.
He said they had him lay on his stomach (which he hasn't done for months) for the procedure. Well, when he did and they poked him to insert the drain (it's in the cheek) he started shaking, went cold, started to turn blue and his blood pressure dropped and heart rate went up. All signs of going septic. That will get a reaction out of folks I'll tell you! They got him stabilized in radiology and brought him back to the room. He had the nurse, floor supervisor, a doctor, respiratory therapist, phlebotomist and portable chest x ray team in here at one right after the other and some of them all at the same time.
After the fireworks died down Dr Treptow came in and said that sometimes the infection can get into the blood stream causing sepsis. Which is apparently what happened. If they catch it early they have a protocol that works to clear the infection. If not it can be bad, very very bad!
With the initial drainage they got about 1/2 cup of infectious yuck. The plan is to keep him on the antibiotic, clear the infection and then early next week go in and try to repair the disrupted area. He said the port may also be compromised due to the sepsis so he will probably take that out at the same time. This will also increase the amount of time he will have the ileostomy, probably be 8 weeks from the time they do the repair before they go back and drop the stoma back in.
His temp is down finally to 99 -100 and his color is sooooo much better than it was.
However, he is still a very sick man.
Thank you for following the "Dorothy Family Journey to Health and Healing!"
We love you all and appreciate your continued prayers.
Jan
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