On a disappointed hope

Alice has come from Sioux Lookout for various reasons, not the least of which is to see me. She came up to the General and my room this morning. When a nurse came by to give me my pain medications, Alice proceeded to ask a number of relevant questions regarding about how and when I receive my antibiotics. 

This has been every eight hours via the IV PICC line. Unfortunately, this has meant that at least once I received a dose at 2 in the morning resulting in my sleep schedule shot to hell. I have been getting by on very little sleep. Alice asked if I might get a larger dose twice daily. The poor nurse said she would pass the request up line.

Alice also inquired about possibly being given the medication, machine and training so that she might administer them herself so that I might go to North Hatley for a day. There, the nurse was very skeptical that it would approved.

Alice left it at that and as I was very tired, she left me to catch some sleep as well as rest herself. I awoke from a nap shortly before the nurse came back to say that it looked like that she had passed on the messages. Then, almost as an afterthought, she said that I would be going back to the Lindsay tomorrow.

I was suddenly very awake as I have been waiting for that news for about two weeks. While I am tired from lack of sleep, I am feeling very fit (relatively speaking) and I am dying to walk and do more physical activities than is currently permitted or even possible here at the General. 

So I posted the good news on Facebook, then started writing this blog post. I was writing away when the infectious diseases doctor came in. She went into some detail about exactly why I am getting the antibiotics. I had known in general why, but now I know better. It seems that I have a coagulate-negative staph aureus infection in my tibia. Because of the complications with my allergies to certain antibiotics and scheduling issues, they hadn’t been able to determine the exact dose necessary to do the job as of yet. Therefore, she will not sign the release forms meaning that my return to the Lindsay is delayed until at least Thursday. I am disappointed.