What’s That Smell?

So with the PICC line done and gone forever (or at least until the next nasty surprise illness) the doctor moved us on to the oral antibiotics…. cause you know 6 weeks of IV antibiotics should always be followed by something equally difficult and stressful. 😐

Actually, I can’t say it’s been THAT bad.  But the first dose did land in the sink untouched.  Turns out that in addition to being taller than I am, Adrian’s arms are longer too.  Go figure.

While I strategized about how to give it another go, we ate dinner there in the kitchen.  But there was this smell.  An awful, cat pee smell. 

Now we’ve not had cats in the house for quite some time now so we were immediately concerned.  We open windows and checked to see if perhaps some creature had sprayed the house.  No.  We checked the garage, the front door, the basement.  No, the smell was only in the kitchen.

We sniffed and sniffed all around.  Eventually we tracked the bad kitty pee smell to the sink.  Yes, the very sink that had just received a full day’s dose of that yummy orange flavored antibiotic.  It couldn’t be….

Yes, it was.  The innocent creamy orange medicine that was touted by everyone as having a pleasant taste does in fact have a lingering cat pee smell.  😮

Now I don’t even feel guilty about the cup of jelly beans I offer in exchange for his drinking down the cup of lemonade tainted with the nasty stuff.

Still Going…STILL

Last Thursday I kept Adrian home from school and we went to see the bone doc and the pediatrician.  I was terribly hopeful that some part of our torment would end.  No luck.  Here’s the actual email I sent my husband later that afternoon:

The guy we saw instead of Dr. L. today was a wacko.  You thought Dr. L. was weird.  This guy took the cake.  They took the cast off,he looked at it and then said that he really felt more comfortable just putting another cast on cause it’s not healed enough that it’s ‘safe’ for him to not mess with it AND he says that the extra support so soon after the surgery is needed, especially if he’s going through a cast in 2 weeks.  So Zee chose red for him.  At least it’s clean and unbroken now and they put some foam around the top so that it won’t hurt his toes when he walks.  So yeah, we didn’t get rid of it, but the situation is improved.

Then we went to Dr. M. and I kicked myself realizing that this wasn’t the week for bloodwork and, DUH, of course he’s gonna want to see that before he ‘releases’ us.  DOH!

 

He said if it’s normal then we can quit, if it’s normal to slightly elevated still he might make us go another week.  (sounded like he’d be looking for a reason to push it another week) We discussed how we could switch to a dif med and do orals instead or if he pulls the line again.  (You hear the distant sound of Carol thumping her head against the desk)  SOOO the sooner we get the blood work in his hands the sooner he can say what’s next so we went to the lab immediately and got his blood drawn – and yeah, ya know they can’t do it through the PICC line there cause that would be way too easy.  😐

 

And I’ve been dealing with a slight headache all day so I decided I’m prob gonna get sick and might better pick up the Claritin D on the way home.  After all we went through I also wanted treats.  Sue me.

 

So we stopped at the grocery store and I got treats and the meds and a jar of pizza sauce – cause yeah, that would be good to have on hand.

 

But when we finally got home (after fighting with Adrian in the car the whole way – even stopping to make him move in back) there was a hole in the bag wth the sauce and YUP it smashed in the garage leaving pizza sauce everywhere.

 

Fun.

 

So now I’m having my ice cream and when that’s done I gotta do more antibiotics cause the lab won’t tell the doc till tomorrow if we can quit or not already.

 

See you when you get home.  Not sure what’ll you’ll get to eat as I’m pretty toasted and WILL NOT be cooking tonight.  No, you can’t make me.  I refuse.  It’s been a long day.  I’m done.  Have some ice cream… and some Claritin.

 

See you when you get home.  Drive safe.  Love you.

Yeah, I was a little disappointed to say the least.   The end of March and this madness cannot come soon enough.

Re-Re-Do

Yeah, the second PICC line made it less than a week.  We found ourselves at the hospital again on Tuesday.  They managed somehow to squeeze us in to get it done at 6pm rather than have to spend another night.  I got a chuckle out of the thought that perhaps they called upstairs to tell them we were coming and someone called in some favors because they didn’t want us back.  Yes, that’s what you get when you have an over active imagination and way too many hours in a hospital room. 😛

Honestly though, all the folks at the hospital have been great.  On our second and third visits we saw several of them again and they were all so happy about seeing us.  Wish I could have returned the sentiment but we were, after all, at the hospital! 

We’re down to the last 24 doses of antibiotics to reach our 6 weeks.  I’m counting them down, watching Adrian closely and wrapping his arm with everything I can find to keep him from pulling this one out.  Next time I think we’ll just go for the full body cast and make life easier.

Wait.  There’s not going to be a next time, right?!   :O

Re-do

Thursday, February 4th we arrived at the hospital around 6pm. 

X-rays, surgery, 3 IV lines, a PIC line, a cast, more doctors than we could count, 2 antibiotics and one huge hospital bill later we went home.

All was well for 4 weeks.  We had a few close calls with pulling the dressing off the PIC line, but other than that things were going well.  We saw the docs last week and the x-rays looked good.  He’s back to walking even though we put another hard cast on to prevent him from picking at the incision.  The blood work looked good and the antibiotic is doing it’s job.  Adrian and I even got pretty good at doing the IV meds at home. 

Thursday, March 4th we arrived at the hospital around 6pm.  Yup.  Exactly one month to the day he suddenly decided he’d had enough and ripped the PIC line out.  DOH!

I’m really rather surprised it took this long to happen but still a bit bummed it had to happen at all.  Just another 2 weeks and we would have been in the clear! 

Looking at his arm I suppose I understand why he might have just decided enough was enough.  His skin was clearly aggravated by all the bandages, tape, wrapping and whatnot.  The nurses had tried to shift it when they made the weekly dressing change but there just wasn’t that many places for it to go. 

So we’re here in the hospital for another night, waiting on a new PIC line. 

The trip through the ER went MUCH smoother this time for Adrian.  He understood just what we meant when we told him that we’d be staying and sleeping in the hospital.  There were no crazy fits and no major incidents of aggression.  He got a bit silly here and there but settled down pretty quickly.

Clearly he doesn’t mind being here as much as the rest of us … and I’m thinking that’s not a good thing 😛