Monday we got a call from Jay's surgeon's office that he would be going in for his minor surgery on December 12. We thought that was good news because these days, sometimes people are waiting ridiculously long times to get in for fairly minor (or major) surgeries. We went about our business that day until the evening. We had Bible study, and about half way through that, Jay ducked out because he wasn't feeling well. Nothing new really. He has been feeling pretty bad for about 3 weeks now.
When it came time to get into bed and he pulled off his shirt I noticed a lump/boil/whatever-you-want-to-call-it on his back and I was very concerned. It was about the size of the palm of my hand, red, raised about 3/4 of an inch and hard as a rock. He was in so much pain, more than he had been in the previous few days. I said we should probably call an ambulance because he couldn't have gotten himself up and driven himself to the hospital. He has since told me that he just about told me to just leave it and we would see how it looked in the morning. Before he could debate I had called 911 and an ambulance was on the way. When the paramedics got here, they looked at the spot and thought it looked like an infected insect bite. But honestly, what sort of bugs are still crawling around at -30C outside? We knew it wasn't that, but were still concerned about it.
So at 10:30pm Monday night they drove him to St. Paul's Hospital and I followed behind a little ways so I could bring Jay his wheelchair and some clothes (though I did forget to bring him a shirt or a jacket :P) When I got there they were drawing blood samples to test and see if he had an infection. They were monitoring his heart and blood pressure. They also started IV antibiotics. That was about all they did. By around 1:30 in the morning they said he could go home, but that he should come back at 7am for more IV antibiotics. We crawled into bed around 2am, and the alarm went off at 6am for him to get up. He decided I didn't need to come with him and he went off to the hospital.
When I hadn't heard from him by 10:30am I was starting to get a little concerned. Finally an ER nurse called me and said they were admitting him and treating him aggressively with antibiotics because he had a pretty bad infection. By this point in time I had called to take the day off of work because I had hardly gotten any sleep, and I figured they might end up admitting him. I went to the hospital and he was still in the ER. Some doctors came in to check on him and looked at his back and figured they might have to cut into it to see what the problem was. Before I knew it they were moving him up to ICU and putting a direct line in his neck.
By this time I decided I should probably call my parents. I called and ended up talking to my sister and telling her everything and she passed it on to them. They were kind enough to come up and hang out with me for a while, even though I didn't ask them to. By this time Jay had asked one of the nurses what type of infection they had suspected. She said that the worse case scenario was that he had necrotizing fasciitis (NF). To a lot of you, that might not mean much....but to me, that is the infection that killed one of my mom's best friends. Also known as flesh eating disease. When they said that I was just panicking inside. The doctor decided to do a procedure called debridement to remove the dead tissue and see what it looked like underneath. He said that the skin underneath looks very healthy and was pleased with the results. Jay currently has a large open sore on his back where they did that, but it sounds like within a couple of days they will sew it up, once they are sure it is free of infection.
Thankfully by Tuesday night they had ruled out NF but they still didn't know what it was. Yesterday when I went up to see Jay he looked SO much better than he had all day on Tuesday. He wasn't feverish anymore and wasn't as uncomfortable. One of the results came back saying that one of the bacterias was strep, which interestingly enough is the one that causes NF, but I guess it depends where that bacteria gets in to. Yesterday the nurses had said they were wanting to move him out of ICU but there wasn't a bed available in observation for him yet. He is still on isolation which means you have to gown and glove to go in to see him. One of the nurses speculated last night that he will likely be in for at least 7-10 days so they can run a full course of IV antibiotics through him. Also, two of the nurses who came in to see him last night said that he dodged a pretty big bullet, and that if he had left it any longer before seeking treatment, things could have been MUCH worse for him. Jay also talked to his doctor about the possibility of having his other surgery performed while he is in the hospital, and they haven't ruled it out.
What a week it has been so far! I am so glad and thankful he is doing so much better! I thank you for your thoughts and prayers in the last couple of days. Please don't stop praying for him because he still has some recovery time ahead. The doctor yesterday told Jay that he figured it was a pressure sore on his back that had gotten infected. Hopefully we can stop any pressure spots on his back and possibly get him a new backrest for his chair. I know now that we are going to be a lot more critical of red or dry spots on his back because that's what this spot looked like before it ballooned up. Just a dry red spot that had been there ever since he started using his current chair (around the time we got married...almost three years ago!).
Well time to go start my day, and head over to visit my sweetheart. When the person you love most in the world is sick it sure puts into perspective what is really important.
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