the low down

Mason has eaten dinner and is sleeping intermittently...a slave to the morphine drip, which is ok in this instance. When we got to bring him up to his room he was much more alert than he has been after the other surgeries. I think that can be attributed to the absence of toradol in his pain killer regimen.  They did have a little trouble getting the pain under control, but now he is using a pca pump - which is the magic button for the morphine.  

He is also getting IV naloxone to control the side effects of the morphine, and IV clindamycin, which is an antibiotic.  


The surgeon irrigated and debrided Mason's arm where the infection had set in - around the pin hole closest to his elbow, and near the plate.  We are speculating the infection started at the pin site, which is not uncommon for people who have external fixators. At any rate, she got it cleaned out pretty well, but there was a "defect" on his bone, meaning a hole in his bone, either from the infection itself, or from the body killing cells to fight the infection.  She assures us it is not a dire circumstance, that the bone will regenerate and be fine once we get rid of the infection. She also removed the screw closest to the defect, as it didn't have a good hold in the bone anymore.  


Mason now has a wound vacuum that is continually removing the fluid build-up in his arm - the pressure from the infection is super painful.  

The bone scrapings, nasty puss, etc. was sent out for culture to find out what the culprit is.   Looks like staph, we are HOPING it is not MRSA.  We should know sometime tomorrow what kind of bug we are up against.   We have another debridement surgery scheduled for Sunday morning.  If it looks really good when she does that one she may close up the wound and we can manage the antibiotics from home.  If not, he may stay for more IV antibiotics.  It all kind of depends on how the cultures come back, and how things look Sunday morning.  We are just going day by day.


I am hoping he gets a good night's sleep tonight....they are taking vitals every hour right now, but should be moving to every 4 hours soon, which will be nice.  He is having bad dreams every time he sleeps - from one of the medicines I suppose.  And the antibiotic put a horrible taste in his mouth that we are trying to get rid of.


Thanks for checking on Mason, and for all the texts, emails and such.  I'm hoping he doesn't go too stir crazy having to stay in the hospital for awhile.  Actually, I guess I hope he feels good enough to be stir crazy!!