How quickly things change...

Wow. Too long since my last post. That's rarely a good thing. I'm never too busy having fun to blog. I'm usually too busy with yucky stuff to blog.

I have so much to catch you up on...but will have to save that for later. Plus, I don't have my computer, I'm on the iPad. So, I'm going to be as straightforward and brief as possible.

This morning I woke up to find an abscess at Harlie's surgical incision site. Clearly, full of pus. So, I had to forget about my TRX class at the gym (training has been impossible this summer) and take her to her pediatrician. He sent us to the ER at MCV.

I sent the boys to my loyal friend and neighbor, Bethany. What would I do without her?! And Terri and I headed downtown.

It didn't take long for them to see we had a problem. It was clear we were headed to the OR. They paged the plastic surgeon here. I actually met with this surgeon years ago when trying to figure out where we should go for more jaw surgeries. Ultimately, I knew we needed a CICU (cardiac intensive care unit), so having major surgery here just wasn't an option. But, when the ER doc told her about us, she remembered us! Impressive. I guess that speaks highly of her, or me...or both.

Anyway, she ordered a CT scan to see how far the infection tracked. Harlie still has hardware in her jaw to help solidify the new bone growth achieved from the distraction. Three months was her surgeon's goal. And that is due to come out November 20 in Boston. But, it looks like that's not going to happen now...

I had to talk to her surgeon in Boston before I could sign anything. She was in surgery all day today. But when I called up there and explained the situation, Dr. Padwa called me back in just a few minutes! She gave me her number and told me that she wanted to talk to the surgeon here before they did anything.

After a few hours, the CT scan was done, and it was time to go to the OR to have the abscess drained and cleaned. The surgeons spoke and had a plan...awesome!

I'm guessing they took her back sometime after 7pm. Dr. Rhodes said everything went well. I was pretty worried because of our last experience with a jaw infection (resulted in a cardiac code). Thankfully, this wasn't nearly as bad of an infection.

Here's the gist:

It appears that the infection has gotten to the hardware and bone. Dr. Rhodes said we want to buy as much time as possible to keep that hardware in place. So, she drained it, cleaned it and put a drain line in it. She left the site open and put a dressing over it.

Infectious Disease (ID) has been called, and for now, they've started her on IV Vancomycin. She will get a PICC line next week and will go home on IV meds (for six weeks). Well, that's the plan as of now. Things could change, of course.

I'm guessing we'll be here for a few days into next week. At least. A lot depends on what this infection does over time. Did this cleaning take care of it, or will it need to be cleaned again? Time will tell. Plus, they sent off for cultures and that will take a few days to come back. They need that info to make sure they have her on the right IV meds. Things are complicated by the fact that she has been on Clindamycin for the last 7 days and another antibiotic 7 days prior to that (AND for 3 to 4 weeks post-op -and she STILL got this infection!) so that might affect what grows in the cultures.

We will meet with ID tomorrow. The docs I spoke with tonight are going to try to get her records from Norfolk to see more details from that infection, to see if that helps them treat this one.

Clearly, we are going to have to do some investigating to see why this is a reoccurring problem. Great - more docs, more appointments... Yay us!

At this point we are hoping that this one cleaning did the trick, that we are able to leave the hardware in place for a while longer, and that this infection doesn't negatively impact the success of the distraction surgery.

It is super late, and I need to get some sleep. Thanks for all your continued support!!!

Much love,

~Christy x

 

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