Update on the jerk

Amy says I need to post an update, and she’s always right, so here I am. Saw Dr Spiegel this a.m. and she’s not overly concerned with the fever, the firmness, the divot or the discomfort down my right side from the faulty drain. The right drain does indeed seem to be faulty, and she supports the unpopular (with me, anyway) opinion that the left drain is compensating for the right. Both drains are staying at least another week. Boo hiss. I wanted to start crying right then & there, but I’m way too proud for that.

She did culture the drain fluid and is looking for answers to my conundrum. She suspects a pseudomona and we hope to know for sure soon. She dug around on my new right breast A LOT (and I do mean dug, as in with a sharp object in hand), looking for fluid to collect and culture. No fluid to be found, even after she opened up the suture line AND tried to aspirate with a very long needle.

No fluid is good news but the very long needle was bad. I told the doc it would be a good day for a Xanax but I didn’t have one on me, not even in my “bag of tricks” as Amy calls it. No, since I’m still carting around these dumb drains, I have my little bitty sling bag for a purse instead of my real purse, which happens to be fully stocked. Grr.

Dr Spiegel suggested I pop into the office of Dr Grimes, my infectious disease guru, since he’s in the same building. He was at another hospital but we talked to his nurse Rhonda. She took a lot of notes and said she’ll get in touch with him and they will get back to me today sometime. Absent the pathology report, we’re in a holding pattern. Dr Spiegel and I talked about Vanocmycin, the wonder antibiotic that has worked so well on me in the past. Problem is, it needs to be administered via IV, either in the hospital or through home health, and Dr Spiegel doesn’t think that’s necessary just yet. She did suggest adding a vanco-like oral drug to my current antibiotics, but Dr Grimes’s nurse Rhonda didn’t think that was a good idea. She said it wouldn’t add more protection and would make me feel sick. Guess we need to wait and see what we’re dealing with.

So the good news is this: I didn’t get admitted to the hospital. The lack of fluid means the infection, if it’s there, hasn’t set up shop to the extent that it had last time. It’s possible that the pseudomona is preying on my already-fragile but on-the-mend body and causing some havoc with the drain sites but not revving up the original mycobacterium. Those are all good.

I’m also healed up really well, considering what a heinous surgery it was. So healed, in fact, that Dr Spiegel couldn’t pry the suture line apart (hence the big needle). She and Nurse Sonia both seemed unusually pleased at how well I’m healing. So why do I feel so crappy?