bleh.......

Today we explored the Infectious Disease department at Children's Mercy.  


The evil staphylococcusaureus is attempting to rear its ugly head!!

staphylococcusaureus

So we are fighting it by doubling our dose of clindamycin, and adding another weapon: rifampin.  Together, these two drugs/weapons are predicted to slay the evil staphylococcusaureus!!!

The side effects of the new drug are similar to the clindamycin, with one important distinction:  rifampin is known for turning your urine orange.

It can also turn your tears or sweat orange.  This should be interesting....

We go back to the orthopedic clinic on Wednesday of this week to see what they have to say.  We need to keep the staphylococcusaureus  at bay for at least a month before we can take out the plate, so keep your fingers/toes/arms/legs etc crossed for us!

(did you guess-- I love the guy's pronunciation of staphylococcusaureus )

finally!

We are home!
Mason will be taking clindamycin (antibiotic) for awhile, and he will be followed closely by both the orthopedic department and the infectious disease department.  They want him to stay out of school until Thursday or Friday, or later if he still is feeling bad.
The plan now is to keep him healthy and let that bone grow and consolidate.  That should take a couple of months, then another surgery to take out the plate.
We are all exhausted, but Mason is really still very tired.  


During one of the times Mason was very "animated" during his hospital stay, he decided his bacteria, staphylococcus aureus, sounds like a dinosaur name.  Click here to see what he means--he is right.  :)

sunday afternoon

Mason is back in his room, pain medicines are in and football is on.


Surgery went well!  The doc said it looked very clean, so she was able to close it up.  She said there was no more bone loss and no more infection apparent.  She irrigated it an extra time for good measure, put in some antibiotic-laced orthopedic cement beads and sewed him up. 


More good news is that the staph strain is not a Methicillin-resistant strain.  We are now going to cut out all the antibiotics except clindamycin, which he will begin taking orally this afternoon or tomorrow.  If he is able to tolerate that well he will probably go home tomorrow!  Wooohooo!


The plan at this time is to try to keep the staph at bay for a few months, until the bone consolidates in the distraction area.  Once the dr. feels that is at an acceptable level she will go back in and take out the plate and the cement beads.  Once the plate is infected there is no chance of leaving it in place, but we really need to keep it in there as long as possible, otherwise we would have to go back to an external fixator to keep it in place (no stretching, tho) because a cast can't keep it absolutely immobile.


After the plate is out, then he will continue to antibiotic therapy for a few more weeks or a month to make sure the staff is out of his system.  They have tests that we will be doing to monitor the bacterial load and inflammation in his system, so we will be able to react quickly if things don't go as planned.


Mason is ready to be out of here!!  Actually, he said if he didn't have to have surgery it wouldn't be a bad place to be.  Everyone here is soooo nice. I don't know why all hospitals can't do it the same way.  But we are looking forward to being home!  

Mason is in the surgery, we are in Ronald McDonald family room. Olivia and I worked at the Ronald McDonald house before but never imagined we would be on the receiving side.
Surgery should be about an hour or less.

10 is the new 8

Yep.  We are delayed.  Seems a couple of emergency appendectomies took our OR.  So instead of starving Mason for 8 hours, they are starving him for 10.  (his words)

Last night was pretty good.  Mason spiked a high fever around 11:30 but by 1:00 was pretty comfortable, and has remained fever free.  That's kind of how bugs do it, I guess.  The surgeon came by this morning and said the latest word is that the germ in Mason's arm is staph, although so far it does not show MRSA characteristics. (Yay!!) The culture is still growing, but this seems promising, and she *may* close his arm today if it looks good when she is in there.

Will keep you posted.

up and down...and up

Mason seemed to be doing well this morning until around 9:30.  Scott & Olivia arrived, and I headed off to grab a cup of coffee down the hall.  When I got back, Scott was holding the vomit bucket for Mason, who was complaining of an extreme headache.  His heart monitor alarm was blaring because of the pain and the vomiting elevated his heart rate, Olivia was in the corner trying to avoid eye contact with the vomit bucket, and Scott was left holding the bucket.

The infectious disease doctor happened upon all this, and asked if Mason had ever suffered migraines - he did when he was in elementary school, but hasn't had one in several years.  She said it could have been triggered from the stress of the situation. Mason didn't think it felt like a migraine, he thought he had a reaction to some medication.  He had just taken doses of 2 different antibiotics, cefazolin and clindamycin.  Since then he has had more of those same medications, and was fine.

At any rate, they took him off the morphine drip (goodbye for now) because that is known for headaches as a side effect.  After making sure he could keep it down, they gave him an oral vicodin (hello, old friend) and that seemed to do the trick - eventually.  He spent a good part of the day with an ice pack on his head or asleep.

However, he is now perked up considerably.  Could be because he got some afternoon visitors today, who came bearing gifts:

home made cookies

+ candy

= good living. Yay!!

Also, he has been given a reprieve from the land of IV!  He is currently, temporarily FREE of the IV and the heart monitor.  All he has tethering him is the wound vacuum, which continues to suck goo out of his arm. His pain level is good, his head quit hurting, all is well.

Mason can have nothing to eat or drink after midnight, in anticipation of an 8am surgery tomorrow.  We will know a lot more after the surgery.  Hopefully the last one for a while.  

in between

Mason had a pretty good night - as good as you can expect in the hospital with someone waking you up every couple of hours!!  And the word on the street is that Lamar's donuts are comin' his way. Sweet!!

Mason's surgeon came by this morning - his next cleaning is scheduled for 8am tomorrow morning.  After she goes in she will know what the next step is.  We are still waiting on the lab culture report. Preliminary reports showed strep, and it would be good news if that is all there is.  The doc said it is likely to show staph as well, so we will wait and see.  She has a plan for whatever the results are, we just have to wait on that to see how to attack.  She would not give me a go-home scenario/time frame yet. She said we would discuss after tomorrow.

We have seen some familiar faces since we've been here.  Mason's favorite care assistant has been in, and a couple of the same nurses he's had before.  Sadly, the receptionist in the surgery waiting area recognized us!  I could have gone all my life without being in a children's hospital.....but if we have to be in one, I will say this is a good place to be.  We are fortunate to have this available so close to home.