Well, I made It - barely - out of that 1st surgery on Nov.15th. All in all it was 10 hours long and I'm fused now fused T1-S1 but they didn't touch the pelvic anchors (thank God). I had an extremely hard time with bleeding (as suspected) and one of the most difficult parts was getting off of the ventilator. There is a vent number, with 14 being minimum number at which my hospital likes patient to achieve before attempting extubation. Well, my number just hovered between 6-8 for hours and hours; once a patient hits 4 crash carts are left bed side. When I hit 3 and they started manually resuscitating with the ambu bag; my Dad and aunt (my Mom was home with the kids and it was about midnight) and stopped looking at the numbers. My Dad snapped one last picture of me and later when I was feeling a lot better, he said "I was there to see you take your first breath and I was terrified that I was watching you take your last. Your eyes were soooooo scared, wide open with tears - and I knew we you could hear me" (And he was absolutely right on both accounts)
So I recovered slowly, day by day, and 4 days after the operation, I was oozing a ton of fluid and the surgeon was very concerned about the amount of drainage. So the day before thanksgiving he puts me on the emergency surgery schedule. And then a 1 hour procedure turns into 4-1/2 hours. The fluid was infected by staph aureous, had blood clots and some evidence of CerebroSpinal Fluid. So he "power washed" it took a sample and sent it away. Before we knew, they came back saying that Infectious Disease had been notified and that I had a staph infection. And so now NOW I'm on IV Vancomycin for 2 weeks (1 week to go) --- AND IF THAT ISNT ENOUGH, a few days later, I developed BILATERAL PLEURAL EFFUSIONS - its all a miracle that sitting here talking to you about all that happened. It's been one long ride and as soon as I get home I'll upload some photos
As for now, I'm in one of the best rehab hospitals in the Phila-metro area and if all goes well and I work as hard as possible, I will be home JUST in time for Christmas.
So I recovered slowly, day by day, and 4 days after the operation, I was oozing a ton of fluid and the surgeon was very concerned about the amount of drainage. So the day before thanksgiving he puts me on the emergency surgery schedule. And then a 1 hour procedure turns into 4-1/2 hours. The fluid was infected by staph aureous, had blood clots and some evidence of CerebroSpinal Fluid. So he "power washed" it took a sample and sent it away. Before we knew, they came back saying that Infectious Disease had been notified and that I had a staph infection. And so now NOW I'm on IV Vancomycin for 2 weeks (1 week to go) --- AND IF THAT ISNT ENOUGH, a few days later, I developed BILATERAL PLEURAL EFFUSIONS - its all a miracle that sitting here talking to you about all that happened. It's been one long ride and as soon as I get home I'll upload some photos
As for now, I'm in one of the best rehab hospitals in the Phila-metro area and if all goes well and I work as hard as possible, I will be home JUST in time for Christmas.
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