Independence Day?

No sooner do I send a blog update earlier this week than I find myself at the ER again on Thursday. This time for a very red, very swollen and painful left thumb.

They did an X-ray, gave me some high-powered antibiotics and said we should keep an eye on it. That night back at home, I was in a lot of pain with the entire left hand swollen like a "hulk smash" fist.  I knew I had to go back to the hospital and would probably have to stay for a while.  After a CT and an ultrasound on the hand, they determined it was cellulitis and put me on IV antibiotics twice a day.    I didn't get released from the hospital until this afternoon  because, although the treatment is working and there has been a huge improvement, there is still some swelling.  I had many different doctors and the one charged with releasing me didn't want me to leave the hospital until the swelling was completely gone. There are no oral antibiotics I can take with my penicillin allergy that equate to the IV antibiotic I am getting twice a day at the hospital.  However, each time we spoke to this doctor, he said the infectious disease doctor could approve a home visiting nurse to administer the IV antibiotic twice a day or he could identify an oral antibiotic that I could take, even though it wouldn't work as well as the IV.   It took until today for the ID doctor to get to us and stay with us long enough to approve an oral antibiotic for me to take that he felt wouldn't interfere with my allergy.   (He is a bit skeptical about penicillin allergies and thinks they can go away after a long time.  He is thinking about doing a study about this.)

The 4th of July holiday probably prolonged our hospital stay with a lighter staff.  However, my hospital room had a window that directly overlooked a beautiful fireworks display, which made it kind of special. 

  

It has been a good time to stay in bed and rest my lifeless legs.  They feel a little stronger and I can feel the ground under my feet but they still aren't moving or balancing well.  We are soon to be at a point where we will have to make a major decision about health care workers and devices that will increase my ability to handle the stairs. I worked with some Physical Therapy people today who introduced me to a "walker platform attachment" for resting my weakened left arm in a little tray on the top left of the walker. It instantly helped me walk with the walker again, although the legs still are very weak.   Mom and Dad Pawlowski have done some research for us on a few different models of automatic stair chairs that only require one person to pull up and down stairs without being attached to the stair.  And  I'm sure there are other options to explore.

We had someone demo one version of a stair chair with me in our house and it seemed to work well. Another one is set to demo their product tomorrow.  We will continue our research on all the options we have and then make our best possible decision..

Never dull!