Gall Bladder -- Second Round of Complications

Mar 26, 2011

As if the other complication from the infection wasn't enough to deal with, 3 days after finishing the antibiotic for it, I noticed another pocket of abscess at the lower incision site.  Since it was over the weekend, I had to wait to call the surgeon's office to get in to see him.

By Tuesday, I knew things were getting serious when I tried to go to my pulmonary rehab session and my resting heart rate when I got there was 107 and my %SPO2 sats were only 90%.  I lasted only 6 1/2 minutes on the treadmill and could NOT get the heart rate down or the oxygen level up.  I got home and called the doctor.  He didn't have office hours last week as he was on trauma team at the hospital, but wanted me to meet him at the office on Wednesday at 11am for him to take a look at what was going on.

By Wednesday morning, my BP cuff would not even register a reading, my temperature was over 102 and I just felt "ravaged" by whatever infection was going on.  I was weak and felt disoriented and again, my neighbor had to drive me to the surgeon's office.  Remembering two weeks' prior when he had to lance and drain the other abscess with NO ANESTHETIC, the first thing I said to him when he came in and took a look at it was "If you need to do any poking, prodding, pushing and/or draining like before, let me run headfirst into the wall to knock myself out first".    He replied "It needs to be opened and drained, but you're going in the hospital for general anesthesia and surgery to do it this time.  This is the second pocket of infection and it's EXTREMELY rare to see this.  We need to find out once and for all what we're dealing with."

I was taken by wheelchair from his office directly to the hospital.  What he DIDN'T tell me at the time was that at this point, I was septic.  The infection had spread throughout my whole system and was in my bloodstream and had already invaded the pleural sac and the pericardiem (sp).  My BP was 77/43, my heart rate was 116, my blood oxygen sats were 84% and I was running a fever of 103 with chills.  I knew something was wrong when they came to draw blood for the blood cultures.  The tube of blood looked to me like the color and consistency of tomato soup. They started an IV to push fluids into my system, put me on 2 liters of oxygen to get my blood oxygen level up and started some really potent IV antibiotics that are VERY irritating to the veins and Dopamine to get my blood pressure up.  Four hours later, I was in surgery to reopen the second incision site and drain it.

The rest of that day was kind of a blur due to the anesthesia, but I remember not "hurting", other than just the raw feeling of the incision from the surgery that had been packed to allow for the rest of the infection to finish draining.

By the next morning, the blood cultures were back that showed it was systemic and that he had me on the right kind of IV antibiotics to knock it once and for all.  But -- as stated above -- after only 2 - 3 infusions of one of the antibiotics had shut down the vein and the IV line had to be restarted at another site and phlebitis had set in at the original site.  But my vitals were GRADUALLY looking better throughout the day and the doctor had ordered them to be taken every 4 hours instead of just at shift change.  By mid-afternoon, my fever finally broke and was under 100.

By Friday morning, the bacterial cultures were back and I had a systemic strep infection and had been fighting STSS -- streptococcal Toxic Shock Syndrome.  My oxygen was reduced from 2 liters to 1 liter and my O2 sats hovered around 91% - 92%, and my BP finally hit 98/62.  I was well on the way to turning this around and the surgeon asked me if I felt comfortable enough with everything to go home and manage the rest of my followup care myself. 

I was taught how to remove the packing and repack/bandage the site myself and given a bag full of supplies to do it.  He is going to be following up with me weekly for the next 3 weeks to make sure we stay on top of this and I was sent home with 875mg Augmentin twice a day for 10 days.  The unpacking/repacking thing twice a day kind of scared me, but I knew it had to be done.  I just decided to take a pain pill 1/2 hour before attempting it to take the edge off the discomfort it causes and make do with that, so it hasn't been too awfully bad so far.

I'm also taking my own vitals and charting them every 4 hours at home so I know immediately if things are taking a down turn and can call him.  But so far, everything has been pretty stable with the BP, HR, O2 sats and temperature.  It looks like I'm finally on the mend. (knock on wood).  I'll have to say that as of this morning the difference in how I feel between today and Wednesday when I hit the surgeon's office is like the difference in daylight and dark.  Other than just still being weak from how this infection had ravaged my system and going through 2 surgeries in 3 weeks' time, I really can't complain.  Regaining my strength -- and 16 pounds that I really didn't need to lose -- will take time.  But I feel like I'm finally at a place where it's doable now.

I'm actually looking forward to a night out next Thursday night with some of my HS classmates at Turoni's.  I'm not sure if I'll feel up to the full 4 hour gathering, but I at least feel like venturing out for a night a fun and getting back into the land of the living for however long I last to try to put all this behind me now.  Hopefully, this is the final chapter in this nightmare so I can continue the road to healing and a full recovery to get back to where I was before the whole GB saga began back at the beginning of January.  This past 2 1/2 months have been an absolute blur with all that's happened and have been pretty much "lost time" in my memory bank.

But the skies are looking bluer and the sun is shining brighter and I'm looking forward to renewed strength and better health in the days and weeks ahead.

0 Comments