I woke up in a puddle...

Well, after waking up in a puddle of puss yesterday morning, I was glad that I was seeing Dr. Rensimer (infectious disease genius) today. I usually don't look forward to Mondays because it's my pin cushion day...they change my PICC tubes and poke the other arm for blood. However, I was VERY anxious to see him today because I was a little bummed out this weekend.

Let me explain...

I felt like we were on the right track: my ear hadn't drained anything for awhile. my energy was back, and I was finally used to the tubes hanging out of my body. Well, last Thursday the lab that runs my blood screwed up the results for calculating my SED rate. Dr. Rensimer came in with a puzzled look on his face and when I asked for what the new number was, he said, "10" so I cheered and got excited. (It was 69 in week 1, 55 in week 2). I thought "What a miracle!" Unfortunately, he then explained that it was not medically plausible for "10" to be accurate and that the lab screwed up the test. So, he took more blood today and projects the number to (hopefully) be down into the 40's this week.

The other reason I was so anxious to go see him was because of the drainage. I woke up this weekend literally in a puddle of puss from my ear. (Time to wash the sheets!) Lovely, huh? Nice yellow puss on my pillow to greet me in the morning. Yummy. So with that, I knew something was up. Also, the place on my arm where my PICC line goes in has been EXTREMELY sore since Friday. It has been burning no matter what I do or how I do or don't move it. It just didn't feel right. So.......today's appointment.

Dr. Rensimer, God bless him and his genius brain, gave me the good news that my PICC line wasn't infected; it was the skin around it that was inflamed. I'm not being sarcastic, that actually is good news!! I was thinking the worst case scenario of them having to replace the whole PICC and various other not fun options. But, he got the nurses to clean it really well with a ton of BURNING alcohol and some iodine. They put a different dressing on it to let it "breathe" so with this one, I can't shower anymore...it's only (lukewarm) baths for me (lukewarm b/c of Malachi).

Here's my gnarly skin infection...yummy!

He wasn't too excited that puss is draining from my ear again. I, of course, was thinking, "Did I do something wrong? Did I make it worse somehow? What did I do or not do?" After airing my frustrations with the situation, he reassured me that it is nothing I'm doing or not doing. The puss is not from my ear at all...get this...it's puss that is draining from my mastoid bone! EWW!

It is good that it's draining as opposed to just sitting and festering in there, but as long as it's draining that means there's still definitely an infection there. He really wants to do an MRI to look at the bone and decide about surgery b/c he thinks that the medicine just can't penetrate the deep pockets of infection in the bone. The MRI would show how damaged the bone is, if surgery is needed, how badly surgery is needed, and whether they would remove the bone or just puncture it and drain it. Of course the urgency of the MRI is put on hold for my sweet little man inside of me...he's still quite squishy in the middle so he's not quite ready to come out of the oven.

I do get to play CSI, though. He gave me a specimen collection kit and taught me how to do it at home. I have to wait until I can feel the puss draining and then poke it with a sterile swab and refrigerate it. Cool, huh? (Cool to me...I have to find humor in it or else I would be sad!) :)

Move over, Gil Grissom, I am the new CSI!

Silliness aside, he did explain that with other infections, surgery is rarely an option. That said, mastoiditis is a tricky and frustrating bugger. It can get really ugly really fast and "the odds are against me when it comes to not needing surgery" (his explanation). So today I'm slightly bummed at the prospect of adding yet another surgery to my resume, but I'm just praying for God's hand to do whatever it takes to leave Malachi inside his incubator as long as possible and for the doctors to do whatever they need to in order to conquer this infection! My God is mighty to save!

Unworthy,
Molly