Infection Unknown….

January 15, 2017

Den was admitted late last night for an infection. The doctors are trying to find the source and what kind of infection it is so he can be given the correct meds to combat the little nasty buggers. Den got to a room sometime during the early hours of this morning. I called him as soon as Em and I were up and he gave me the room number and said that he was going to skip breakfast for now. I told him that I would be on my way shortly and that Meg was on her way down to our house soon. Em was going to stay home to take care of Harrison and wait for her Aunt to arrive.

When I arrived, Den was out for a CT. When he came back he they took a nasal swab to see if there was any of the infection in his sinuses. They still don’t know where the infection came from at this time. So for now, Den is still being given 2 different broad spectrum antibiotics twice a day. Thankfully, the CT came back negative for any abscesses in his abdomen. This ruled out any infection in his drive line. (I was worried that I may have screwed up and caused a drive line infection, but this put all that in the clear.) Drive line infections are the single biggest reason for re-admission with an LVAD. Since the skin never really closes, it is an open area for any bug to get free access to the body and cause all kinds of havoc!

I talked Den into some lunch, even tho he said he wasn’t hungry. He did eat his sandwich and drank his apple juice. I took a walk after lunch. While I was gone, Den had been put on full contact precautions. This means that you need to put on a gown, mask and gloves to enter his room. I did this until I could talk to the nurses and the LVAD Team. My question was….if Den was infectious, the I already have whatever it is! I understand that this was to prevent spreading anything to other patients, but I wasn’t visiting anyone. I had also been in close intimate contact with Den for the more than 30 days. If he had something, I had it, too! The doctors and nurses agreed that the gown, gloves and mask were not necessary for me, but I had to promise not to go in other patient rooms and wash and sanitize my hands until the source of the infection was found. This I could do without a problem, since the only reasons I left his room were to go outside for some air (have a cigarette) and get myself some food.

Later in the evening, after Den said that he wasn’t hungry, the blood tests started to come back. Den had a bacterial infection in his blood stream. Now we just had to wait to see what kind of bacteria it was to dial in the correct medication to kill it off! It would be at least another 24-48 hours before we would know what specific bacteria we were dealing with.

At this point, Den was sleeping on and off, so I read my book, worked on my crochet and slept when I could. I had a feeling this was going to be a bumpy ride.