This blog post is a bit delayed, but I wanted to bring everyone up to speed on recent progress. I came home from the hospital this past Tuesday evening (December 7th), but my release was due in no part to modern medicine, in my humble opinion. A week ago today, last Sunday, my morning started out with receiving news that I would need to be in the hospital another 5-6 days. I didn’t take this well, considering I had already been in the hospital a week. Basically they had found a pocket of bacteria near the surgery site and needed to determine the right medication to to fight this infection. In order to do this, the lab was growing samples of the bacteria culture and then treating them with various antibiotics to find the appropriate medicine. In another life I may have seen this as a fun science experiment, but now that it was requiring 5-6 more days in the hospital it was another story.
At this point, a switch inside me turned on. If I was going to be in the hospital that much longer, I was going to own this place, make it my own. I immediately informed my nurse that my dogs would be coming in to spend the day with me. Then I called up Nick and told him to pack up the kids and a travel bag and bring them on down. After all, sometimes the best cure doesn’t come from a pharmaceutical company or from someone licensed to practice medicine.

To be able to spend the day with the family...priceless
The dogs behaved wonderfully and were a big hit with the nurses! Later in the afternoon, Jane came by armed with Christmas decorations, holiday ornaments to decorate, a movie to watch, cookies and hot cocoa. For a day that started with gloomy news, it certainly finished on a positive note. But it didn’t end there. On Tuesday afternoon I was informed they had finally landed on the right concoction of antibiotics and that I could go home – four days ahead of schedule! I’m a firm believer that it was a positive attitude and some answered prayers from the big guy upstairs that allowed for this change in plans…and I was certainly thankful for it.

Holiday cheer - hospital style
Since arriving home on Tuesday night, I’ve spent the past few days slowly recovering and gaining my strength back. Laying in a hospital bed for over a week definitely takes its own toll on your body. I began working half days from home on Wednesday and will aim to start work full time tomorrow (from home, to begin with).
I was originally scheduled to have my ileostomy reversed (bag removed and small bowel put back inside me) this coming Friday, however a test showed there is still a small leak at the new connection point, signifying it is not completely healed yet. This surgery will now be pushed back until 2011. While I was looking forward to spending the holidays bag- and cord-free, it looks like that will not happen. I also still have a catheter strategically placed in my upper right butt cheek that is continuing to drain the infection. I have my fingers crossed that this fun apparatus will be removed in the coming week.
In the mean time, I hope everyone is managing to enjoy the holiday season that seems to just be flying by. It appears we won’t be getting Christmas cards out this year so we wanted to make sure and wish everybody a happy holidays and say that we are forever grateful for the continued well wishes!