12 Days of Antibiotics

Karen was released Saturday evening, and did we sleep in today! She's feeling better since starting the new antibiotic. In fact, she's feeling better than she's felt in months. This again makes me wonder if this infection had been around for a while. Perhaps some other issues we've been dealing with were related to this infection? Despite receiving ertapenem, the antibiotic, once a day for 3 days in the hospital, we've been prescribed another 12 doses over 12 days. They aren't taking any chances with this one. The only way to administer this antibiotic is via IV, so our options were either home health care, or coming into Mayo Clinic every day. It's a half hour drive, but we've opted to come in. Karen did well when we had radiation every day for 3 weeks, and we like the quality of the care we receive at Mayo. We actually had our first infusion today and it went smoothly. We received the same great care and accommodations we've come to expect from Mayo and are happy with the decision.

As far as home health care is concerned, over the years we've probably had six or seven different home care nurses, but there was only ever one we really liked. Perhaps Mayo has spoiled us, but a lot of home health nurses don't measure up. And the one we did like ended up getting a job somewhere else, but the company wouldn't say where. We've primarily used Arizona Home Care. It's recommended by Mayo and is covered by our insurance. They claim to be the largest home health care provider in Arizona, but we've never had much luck with them. Each nurse seems to have their own ideas of how things should be done, and what is and isn't sanitary. This lack of consistency causes concern. While they try to give you the same nurse each time for the same procedure, when a substitute comes by they often do things in an entirely different way. This either leaves you worried about how the current nurse did something, or how the previous nurse had done it. They also have to call from your home phone to prove they were here, but we don't have a home phone line. So one of us has to unlock our mobile phone and hand it to them to use, which can be a bit uncomfortable with a stranger. Surely they could lend the nurses a company phone and use that to track their GPS coordinates - or at the very least ask them to install something on their personal phone that will track their coordinates while they're working. Sure, there are other home health care companies, but we don't have any recommendations from anyone we trust, and this feels too important to leave up to chance.

Another Hospital Stay

Because Karen has cancer and a weakened immune system, Oncology has told us to call in whenever she gets a fever. They like to monitor any kind of infection very closely, even if it's just a viral infection. On Tuesday Karen was alternating between hot flushes and sweats, and chills. It sounded like a flu so we took her temperature and it came up as 99.9°F. In the past 30 days Karen had been treated for a UTI twice, but with entirely different symptoms. However, because of this history, they wanted us to come in. It was almost 5pm at this point, and the regular hospital entrance would be closed, so they told us the ER would admit us. Since the ER never closes, we opted to wait until rush hour had passed, and it doesn't really calm down until after 7pm. We assumed we'd end up staying a few days and spent some extra time packing.

We didn't arrive until after 9pm. And it only took a few minutes for us to get our own room to wait in while the admission was being processed. It was a busy night so we had to wait a couple hours. But we had our own TV, and they had water, sodas, and juices available. We both had water, and after a while I had some orange juice and Karen had some cranberry juice. We weren't officially admitted until around midnight, but we're night people and found the overall experience quite positive all things considered.

While we originally thought it was probably just a flu, Karen UTI symptoms returned the evening before we left for the hospital. With an unclear diagnosis they ran a bunch of different tests and took a bunch of different cultures. They got a urine sample, blood samples, and an xray to check for pneumonia. They even took blood from two different sites on her body to have a better chance of catching any infection. These cultures typically come back in 24 to 48 hours, so they put her on a broad spectrum antibiotic while we waited, just in case it wasn't the flu.

The results came back early this morning, and it turned out to be another UTI. I'm not sure why this one caused flu like symptoms. Perhaps it was a more aggressive UTI than we've had previously, or perhaps the prior infections hadn't quite gone away and had spread to other parts of the body? This particular bacteria was found to be resistant to all oral antibiotics. This means there wasn't a pill Karen could take to beat this UTI. It was also resistant to the IV antibiotic she had been receiving. They switched over to ertapenem this morning. Writing this out, it actually sounds pretty scary. But it's pretty common to swap out antibiotics after your UTI is cultured, and Karen was already on the new antibiotic and starting to feel better before we had the full story. So finding out the details later in the day wasn't traumatic for us in any way.

As long as things continue to improve we should be home soon. I'm hoping we can get out of here tomorrow, but Saturday seems a bit more realistic. Either way I'm really looking forward to it. It's so hard to sleep in a hospital.