Gus is Hazardous to My Health: Part Two

It has come to my attention that I never finished telling the story of my cat bite drama, and because I am super busy this week, here it is for your reading pleasure.

***WARNING!! THIS POST CONTAINS ICKY PICTURES***

(The cat that started it all. He looks so cute and innocent, right? How can you be mad at that?)

A few months ago, I started The Great Finger Saga.  A bunch of crazy things happened, and I never felt it was the right time to finish it.  But because I had already started most of the post, and because it only required a little tweaking, (and because it's lazy blogging week--yay!), here is my tale of raging infectious disease.

The finger pre-surgery. See? It totally doesn't look that awful, does it? I mean, it looked waaaay worse after it happened. I just don't have any pictures of it from then. What was I thinking?

Where we last left off in our story was the day before surgery. Fast forward to the next morning. I was pretty scared but still was feeling uncharacteristically zen about the whole thing. It was what it was. Then I got to the hospital and got super nervous. Still, I tried to see this as an adventure. A learning experience. I've always been fascinated by medical stuff and gross pictures, and here was a chance to experience it first hand. I'd never had surgery before but have watched like a million episodes of "House" and "ER," so I could put all of that medical knowledge to the test. Awesome.

They called me to surgical prep pretty quickly, and luckily they didn't offer to let Jim accompany me just yet, because I wouldn't have let him come anyway. He's medically squeamish, and has passed out before, so I wasn't letting him anywhere near needle insertion. I'm not afraid of needles, blood, or urine specimen cups, so pre-surgical was a breeze for me. They let Jim and my Dad (who came to wait with us) back into my prep room, and then the hard part came. The waiting. And the waiting.

Luckily, I got visits from the my infectious disease doctor and my surgeon. That helped pass the time. Finally, the anesthesiologist came in, and then I knew the ball would get rolling. My OR nurse finally came in, and it was time to GO! I was so ready to get it over with.

Being rolled into an OR is a scary experience. They took my glasses off (which meant I was blind as a bat), so my view of everything was fuzzy. That's ok though, because my view was mostly of the ceiling. When I got into the OR, it was cold and bright, as I expected, having watched lots of television. (See? It's totally good for something.) There were a lot of people running around doing lots of things that I'm sure pertained to me somehow. The OR nurse never left my side and explained everything that was going on. The anesthesiologist was ticked off because her computer that keeps track of medications wasn't letting her log in, so they had to bring in some other guy to help her. It was a tad disconcerting, since you want everything to run smoothly. My awesome nurse came in close, touched my arm, and said, "This has nothing to do with you. You are totally fine. It's just a problem with the computer that keeps track of medications for billing. Don't worry." So then the other two anesthesiologists heard her, thought, "Oh, maybe we're freaking out the scared patient," so they both came over and laughed and said, "Oh, no, don't worry, you're totally fine." OK. Let's get this OVER WITH!

The plan, because I'm a sort-of-professional singer, was to avoid intubation at all costs (because they shove a plastic tube down your throat, pushing aside your vocal chords). The plan the doctors came up with was to give me several shots in the nerves of my affected finger, to numb it, put me under heavy sedation, and then do a light dose of general anesthesia over that, but only use a breathing tube that goes to the back of your throat. This was fine with me. I had two criteria: (1) avoid my vocal chords, and (2) make sure I am dead to the world. But not literally.

I was afraid of that nerve block (a needle in your nerve has to hurt, doesn't it?), so both my nurse and I requested sedation prior to that. The doctor said I might feel it just a little, but all I remember is the anesthesiologist telling me she was injecting the sedative, the nurse holding an oxygen mask over my mouth, and then....nothing. Versed, you are a wonderful drug.

The next thing I remember is coming to in the recovery room, or perhaps being wheeled there. I vaguely remember the anesthesiologist asking me to sing...maybe. God only knows, when you're coming out of anesthesia. I do remember coming to, and it didn't take long. My eyes wouldn't focus for a while, and I was dreadfully thirsty, and my throat hurt. Some nice person brought me my glasses so I could see. Then I could watch my vitals monitor, which had the time on it. Large chunks of time would pass, even though it felt like time was going slowly. I don't think I slept, but apparently, I zoned out big time.

I remember the first thing I did after waking up was look at my hand. I had a small fear going in that they would have to amputate my finger, so I had to check to make sure it was still there. It was. It was wrapped up into a giant club, and I couldn't feel it at all, so that was good. I just stared at it for a really long time, inspecting it. It probably looked weird to the nurses, but I suppose they're used to that. I heard all kinds of crazy from the other patients in the room.

An hour or so later, two techs came to get me to have my PICC line inserted. If you're not familiar with a PICC line, PICC stands for Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter, or Evil-Medieval-Torture-Device-That-Made-My-Life-Hell-But-Actually-Allowed-Me-To-Do-My-Own-IV-Treatments-At-Home-Instead-Of-Having-To-Be-In-The-Hospital-Or-The-Nursing-Home-For-Six-Weeks. You see, one of the problems with treating osteomyelitis, which is what I had, is that it requires really strong IV antibiotics daily for six weeks. So in otherwise healthy patients, the hospital inserts a plastic catheter in the fleshy part of your upper arm and threads it through a vein until it reaches your superior vena cava, one of the main arteries coming out of your heart. This is done using ultrasound and x-ray, which was kind of cool, but also super creepy. I was worried I would feel the catheter snaking its way into my heart, but I didn't. I won't say that the procedure hurt, because that's not quite the right word, but let's just say I hope never to have to repeat it.

Once that was done, the techs kindly let me use the bathroom (hours and hours of IV fluids + a normally weak bladder = extreme discomfort). They also gave me a glass of water, so they were at that moment officially my favorite people of the day. (No offense, OR nurse Jody-you're my fav too)

There was some confusion about which room I would be going to following surgery, even though I had been told 325 hours before, and I kept saying, "I was told 325." Eventually, where did I end up? 325.

I was pretty darn awake at this point and feeling no pain. The nurses were really nice and got me set up with a morphine pump (which I saw as a challenge--I WILL NOT USE IT!) and got me as comfortable as possible in my room. My family all came to see me that night, and though I didn't think I was hungry, by the time dinner made its way to me, I was STARVING! My biggest complaint the whole time I was there was a nasty migraine that wouldn't go away. You'd think that in a hospital, they could fix that, but all they could give me was extra-strength Tylenol. Thankfully, I slept better than I expected, and in the morning, after breakfast, my migraine finally eased.

I had the nicest nurses while I was there. I have several nurses in my life, so I know they work really hard, are underpaid, and get treated like crap half the time. I know to be really appreciative of all they do. But these women were so kind and so laid back, and I am grateful to them for taking such good care of me!

In the morning, I woke up and knew I needed to go home. Come on, people, let's get the ball rolling. Thankfully, my daytime nurse was behind me 100%, so she did all she could to get me home ASAP. I had several doctors to see first, but luckily, they all came at almost the same time, and I got that out of the way. The nurse unwrapped my hand, and I got to see my incision for the first time. Gag. The surgeon had put a cotton pack in it, so when the nurse removed it (which I thought would hurt, but it didn't), the hole was gigantic! I am not a squeamish person, but I seriously couldn't look at it. Then blood started to ooze out. And the surgeon wanted me to start physical therapy on it right away. That actually didn't hurt at all, even though I had regained feeling in my finger at around 3am that morning. But it was gross that blood would seep out of the wound every time I bent that joint. Ick. Wanna see a picture of it, a couple of days post-surgery? It's kind of gross, be warned.

Gross, huh? But it looked far worse the day after surgery. Plus, it just got unwrapped before I took the picture, so it looks kind of squished and weird.  It only took about two weeks to heal completely, and now I only have a small scar and a small amount of scar tissue.

So anyway, the nurse got me out of the hospital by noon, which I was really happy about. I was useless at home, but at least I was surrounded by comfort and love! I knew there was a lot of crap coming up to deal with, and poor Jim was taking care of me, the animals, the house, and working 72 hours a week. I don't know how he did it. I only know that it reiterated to me how amazing he truly is.

Ok, now it's time for show-and-tell. There aren't any more graphic pictures.

My poor, useless mitten. I changed the dressing on it three times a day. I always made sure to leave three fingers carefully uncovered, or else I was totally screwed. This is, however, the main reason I couldn't drive or bathe myself.

 

My massive blister caused by some reaction to the medical tape on my PICC line. 
I actually have a small scar still from it. .

The tower of medical supplies.

Me making a fist! I hadn't been able to bend that finger for over a month, so that was progress.
It's the little things, people.

My worst enemy PICC line. A temporary/too permanent for my taste IV line inserted in a vein in my arm. It is threaded into my superior vena cava, which for those who don't remember high school biology, is in your chest. And I was awake for the insertion. Good times.

I had to do an IV once a day for six weeks. Plus, I had to make a two-hour round-trip drive once a week for a bandage change and some blood work. But the staff there was really nice, and the drive was easy, so I shouldn't complain.

My nifty little bottle of ertapenem: just plug in and go. The doctor changing my drug after the first week, from the broad-spectrum ertepenem to the more focused ceftriaxone. My finger cultures showed the bacterium Pasteurella growing in my bone, so this new drug will target that bacteria.

I still can't believe one little cat bit caused all of these problems. It took a long time for me to realize that osteomyelitis is a very serious illness, and is potentially deadly (though not if you get it treated--I'm in no danger of dying).  Being sick sucked, because I couldn't lift anything heavier than a gallon of milk until the PICC line was out, which meant I couldn't even pick up my own cats. Or laundry baskets, or bags of groceries. I also couldn't do dishes (boo hoo, huh?), and I had difficulty opening cans of pet food. I also couldn't shower by myself until  I got a nifty contraption that creates a seal over the PICC line to prevent it from getting wet. With that, I was able to put it on all by myself and shower whenever I wanted! Yippee! But I still felt like an invalid, and that depressed me.
Thanks to massive amounts of probiotics I was taking to counteract the massive amounts of antibiotics going into my body, the only side effect I had from the medicine during treatment was extreme tiredness.  My worst day was the day I had to lean against the washing machine and catch my breath after putting in a load of laundry.  This, three months after running a 5K. 

Since stopping the antibiotics, I'm still not 100%.  A few weeks after finishing treatment, I got suddenly, violently ill, two days before Christmas.  I almost ended up in the hospital, and for a while, I might have welcomed that.  My doctor suspected C diff, a secondary bacterial GI infection caused by the die-off of good bacteria in my GI tract.  So I was back on antibiotics; oral Flagyl this time.  That took care of the vomiting and the worst of the other-awful-GI-symptoms-that-you-all-know-what-I'm-talking-about, but the other-awful-GI-symptoms-that-you-all-know-what-I'm-talking-about lasted for about another month and a half.  And I have some memory issues (I can't remember crap right now), which my neurologist thinks is from the antibiotics and should go away eventually.  So osteomyelitis kind of ruined my life.  At least for a while.  But I learned a few things; (1) I plan to take good care of myself and never, ever get sick for the rest of my life, and (2) never, ever pick Gus up when he's mad.