Half the Energy, Twice the Spunk

I talk often of the '2 hour black hole' we live our lives in - we can not plan anything concretely beyond the next 2 hours as things can change just that fast. Yesterday at dinner I was doing great, making pizza's for the boys, puttering around the kitchen, and then around 6pm I stumbled down that black hole. Suddenly started feeling tired and just totally overwhelmed with the idea of getting off the couch. my temp was fine but i felt like trash - figured I had done too much as I went shopping with Dave and did a lot of walking. By 7pm my temp was 102F (39C I think) and I felt like a bag of crap. By the time I was triaged at the ER I was at almost 40C (104F?). Not fun.

They got me in really fast (apparently 'central line' and 'fever' tends to earn one a room immediately) and did labs and cultures (from both arms and the line). My white cells were ok (good news) but there was a significant 'left shift' (some sort of calculation they do with numbers of different white cells - a strong left shift almost confirms a bacterial infection somewhere). He sent the cultures and started me on IV Rocephin (once a day IV antibiotic - the 'good' one when it comes to wanting to go home and just pop into the ER once a day for a dose) and suspected we could ride it out at home with the daily abx.

This morning I woke up feeling the sickest I have ever felt in my life - shaking chills, very high fever, just really really awful - Dave had get the advil, crush it, and put it through my feeding tube as I was too sick and shaking etc to even do that myself - it was really scary for both of us and I nearly went back into the ER right then. thankfully the advil worked well and I was feeling a bit better.

Dave had some lawns to mow and yards to cleanup so my aunt came over to hang out with me (im not allowed to be alone with a potential line infection). Parked my butt on the couch and planned to do nothing but watch TV all day.

Unfortunately my body had different plans - I fell asleep at 11am, and woke up at 1 to the phone ringing. It was the ER doctor having a bit of a panic attack. My line cultures had grown gram negative bacteria (haven't asked the do which bug specifically) in less than 12 hours (it's pretty rare for a blood culture to grow anything before the 24 hour mark I'm told). Anyways after stressing very much that I was to basically drop what I was doing and beeline for the ER I got my neighbour to drive me in - thankfully my Aunt was over (thanks Heather!!) and was happy to stay with the boys until Dave was done. Same deal tomorrow - Heather will come at 5am so dave can go to work, then she will take the boys to school and pick them up - Awesome luck she retired a few weeks ago and has her days to herself at the moment - major help.

Anyways - the bug they grew is apparently just not possible to eradicate from the line so they are popping me in an ambulance, and taking me to HSC to have my line pulled in the morning. Not sure what the long term 'keep-keely-from-drying-up-and-starving' plan is but if we can at least get fluids through an arm IV I am hopeful I can go home in between doses etc. We'll see how the night goes.

Well I'm falling asleep at the computer here so I should wrap this up…

I'll update when/if anything changes - in the meantime well wishes/prayers/etc are always welcome. Anyone local that wants to give us a hand in the coming weeks (I'm going to be pretty useless for the next few weeks as I recover - blood infections are not quick 'bounce back' type of illnesses) please either email me, or (likely better) call Dave or my mom and they can let you know if we need anything at the moment - one thing we will likely need is rides into Selkirk a few times a day - I am hopeful we can find a few people willing to help with this so no one person has to drive too often - if you're able and willing to offer rides, please just facebook/email me and let me know what days/times you are available and I or Dave or my mom will get in touch with you as we are going to try to put a 'schedule' of sorts together.

Thank you for all the support and help - we appreciate everyone, even if all you're able to do is send me an email - just chatting and keeping in touch makes such a difference!

I'll try to update tommorrow - I will be at the city hospital in the morning to have the line pulled and we will make some decisions there about longer term plans.