Yeah…I know that Yogi said it first…but it works here so Ima borrowing the phrase from him.
After our almost 12 hour overnight stretch in the ER Connie was admitted again and made it to a room shortly before Neil got to the hospital to visit about 0900 or so on Friday…and the surgeon decided to keep her at least overnight for some IV antibiotics…they put her on a broad spectrum one to kill whatever bugs were in her system.
Saturday morning her white blood cell count was back down to normal, no fever, and the surgeon stopped by about 0900…he told her that he was going to discharge her with oral antibiotics. They finally made it out of the hospital a bit after 1400…the hospitalist said that he and only he could discharge her and the surgeon didn’t have anything to do with that step…sort of a who’s is bigger pissing contest between the doctors I guess…but I digress.
Just after we left the hospital we got the notification from Walgreens that her oral antibiotics…Augmentin which doesn’t tear up her stomach nearly as much as some of the others…was ready so we picked that up along with both of their cholesterol drug refills on the way home…and she’s happy to be resting in her recliner…again.
Hopefully it will stick this time…but with 10 days of antibiotics that should make sure that whatever it was is gone. She’s already got her post op appointment setup with the surgeon and her PCM wanted to have an appointment with them as well…Neil’s already got his annual scheduled and since Connie can’t drive yet they scheduled hers at the same time as his so only one trip over there will be needed that day.
Still havne’t gotten him to do the images for me…but in his defense he has been sorta busy…so I’ll cut him some slack I reckon.
Cyas.
Travels with Gunther and Kara 
Ye gods. That’s no fun, no fun at all. Connie I hope you are well and truly better and quickly feeling great.We just did the in hospital, get sent home, back to hospital thing too. I hope you never have to do that again either. I did learn one thing: if you are being stranded, undischarged, it helps to go to the nurses station and very nicely ask for the self discharge papers. Usually they will say they will bring them to your room. Then they get on the phone to see if they can get you officially discharged. I don’t now what the moving force is, but a hospital secretary gave me that hint and it worked for me after I had been waiting since 8am when my cardiologist said he was releasing me and I’d be be out by noon. Then was told at 4pm that only my PrimaryCare could release me. I hadn’t seen or heard from her at or since my admission, me. And she had 30 more patients to see at another hospital before she could get to me. I asked for the self discharge papers. I never even saw them, but I was out of there in 45 minutes. Apparently the doctor could dismiss me after reviewing my records with the head nurse and a witness and everyone was happy.
Get better, stay better and enjoy everything you can.
Luckily she had a good nurse both times and the paperwork was relatively quick overall…but even though the surgeon said he was discharging her about 0900 the hospitalist from her primary care group has to actually do the discharge authorization…some sort of turf issue between the various doctors I guess. Once the hospitalist had seen her it was only another hour or so and we were out of there.
She’s happy to be home again though…and I was surprised they didn’t send her home with antibiotics in the first place after bowel surgery…because it’s messy as the surgeon said and it seems that infection would be likely in that case. I can understand the ‘don’t overuse antibiotics’ idea as it worsens bacteria immunity to them…but in bowel surgeries it seems a wiser idea rather than only giving them to people that actually get an infection. Non bowel I could see waiting to see though.
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Hope everything gets back to normal and with a good rest you’ll be back on the band wagon. We are all ok. Wendy and I flew down to Ellenton a weeks ago for a short weekend. My friend was coming from Calif and another from the upper part of Michigan. There were 2 who were in Florida for a quick get together. So our book club was together again. One of us has pasted away since I moved up here to VA. We all had a great time. Stay well.
Glad things are doing well for you…I was surprised that they didn’t send her home with antibiotics in the first place since bowel surgery is messy and even if well cleaned out by the prep it’s still not sterile and they did cut a hole in it. Yeah…they flush and clean as bet they can but there are lots of nooks and crannies in your abdomen where bacteria can hide and cause infections. Guess they’re concerned about overuse of antibiotics…which is a good thing I guess…and only give them if there’s an infection to treat.
We both had a good nights sleep last night and I’m babying her as much as she wants…she wants to continue to walk and do what she can as that makes her better faster if you move…but she’s under orders to get me to help when she needs it…and so far she’s doing that.
Hopefully she’ll be mostly better by the end of the month…we’re supposed to go to London for a choral tour she’s in in the summer and we need to pay the next increment of that (non refundable) and buy tickets early next month and don’t want to spend money and then have her not be able to go…but if she continues to improve she’ll have been back to the surgeon for 2 week checkup and to her regular doc as well so we ought to be good to go and continue working on the trip preps.
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Glad things are going along Ok. Sounds like wonderful things are coming your way. I enjoy hearing about friends doing fun things. Wendy and I went to London before she was married but just for a week. Too short a trip. I love to travel. I guess that was when I married the kid’s Dad since we moved so many times with him. Have a good day and hope each day show improvement.