Amanda’s blood counts have been up; with the infection, everything was all over the place. Now that I have access to her MyChart, I’ve been checking things pretty regularly. One thing that we’ve been dealing with is a low white count and neutrophil, a specific white blood cell that helps fight against infection. Both, after medication, are rising steadily. Some things spiked during the infection, but mostly things tanked. One of the markers they saw in the fluid from her knee before it grew the infection was 30k, the normal was 3k, the surgeon said. That is what led them to do surgery before the fluid cultures grew a specific bacteria, along with other markers in the blood.
Saturday morning, I was so tired and barely rolled out of bed to make it to the hospital to make rounds. I snoozed my alarm for about 45 minutes! I could leave later with the weekend traffic since it’s usually not that bad. Being in the burbs, the weekday morning school drop-off and afternoon pick-up are the worst times. I’m learning when to go and come. That will come in handy when scheduling PT and dialysis once we get out of here.
I grabbed some Hardees for breakfast. Amanda was eating it when the cardio and NP came in. He said they are usually strict about food, but she could eat whatever she wanted, and the Hardees looked good. The NP said he worked there when he was younger and once made 1500 biscuits in one day, saying he still remembers the recipe. Amanda still isn’t eating much, and I’m staying on her about drinking the protein shakes. We really aren’t plant based at the moment. I’m a firm believer in plant-based, but to do it right, you need to eat a lot. That’s one of the very reasons why I like it, I love food and love to eat. But with so little, Amanda needs the opposite: heavily calorie-dense food. The kind we use to eat all the time, the kind that made us fat!
I asked about the infection; I knew the cultures hadn’t grown anything, and echoed what ID had to say about the knee. I was concerned about the knee. Dr McChick said there really was no way to know. Nothing scientific from the doctors on this one, just wait and see what the blood cultures say, and see how the knee feels. Amanda told them with a sad pouty face, “No more surgeries.” There was no dad joke, so I asked if he remembered the joke from yesterday. He said to his son, he forgot the joke, and his son said What joke! As he walked out, she said, “I’ll be back with one.” She showed up not long after with the question, “What type of bear has no teeth?” “A gummy bear!”
When I asked about the plan for getting out of here, it seemed the same: biopsy, then discharge afterward. He said, “Don’t say the D-word too loud or the knee will hear and mess things up.” It already did so last week! We also have the lymphatic drainage to deal with, too. I hope they take care of that before we discharge and don’t have to come back for that; it would make things easier.
In the afternoon, I went to Hop for a bit. Brett was working but expoing and not bartending. He did come over and chat with me for a while. He was having issues with his truck and was trying to figure things out with it. I told him I had a scanner that could read the code his truck was throwing. I had a good idea what was wrong with it and told him I could run the scanner and help him work on it. He looked surprised and relieved at the same time. I ended up giving him a ride to his apartment, and we looked at the truck. It should be a pretty cheap fix, doing it ourselves, and he was ecstatic that I was willing to work on it. So either Monday or Tuesday, I’ll go over and wrench on it. I’m glad to help, and it’s a little bit of normalcy for me.
I stayed later than usual, but I’d already told Amanda that I wasn’t going to be in for rounds. I didn’t have any intention of getting up early. Today marks 7 weeks, 4 of those I spent sleeping in the ICU, not one did I sleep in, nor did I sleep in much when I was supposed to be off duty when Larry and Britt were here. So, I figured I’d earned a day to miss rounds, have no alarm, and have no set time to be at the hospital. It was good to sleep in too. I set some Benadryl and Melatonin out to take if I woke in the middle of the night. I’ll typically do this when I need to sleep during the day for work. I woke around 4, popped those and went back to sleep, getting up around 10.
I took my time getting ready and got to the hospital just before lunch with some Sonic for Amanda. She did end up eating a decent amount. We had no visits in the afternoon from any teams. A biopsy is scheduled for tomorrow, but with the way things go, I’d imagine Tuesday is more likely. That would be better since she has dialysis scheduled tomorrow, too. She was wasted last time with both happening on the same day.
As I’ve mentioned, it’s been a bit frustrating in the PT department. It was easier when I could get her up myself and walk the halls. She did walk on Saturday, the most she has since the knee surgery. We need to be doing it more often, but the nurses and care partners today aren’t too helpful with that. I could get her up, but I need an extra hand. She wants the extra support because she’s not very sure of herself or stable. I feel we need to get out of here and to the rehab facility to make any strides now. It’s frustrating that we don’t have good PT support here, and now, there’s not much support with the nursing staff for walks either. I did get her up with just the nurse’s help early this evening, and she walked farther than she has yet. I plan to get her up again before bed to walk again when we get her from the chair to bed, too.