Mikie’s right arm is swollen bad enough that they are going to do some ultra sound on it today to look for blood clots or other problems.  The PICC line might have to come out but we hope not, because the antibiotics he is getting need to be administered intravenously.

It’s almost 11 AM and we just got Mikie a bath and have him sitting up in his wheelchair.  He looks pretty good, he is off the oxygen completely and is resting well even though is awake   Doc said this morning that we can start talking about going home, depending on how well the treatment for this bug in his urinary tract goes.  They also cultured from around the stoma for his feeding tube and found the same bug there. It is a nasty bug and the antibiotic they wanted to treat him with is on a national shortage and not available so they are treating him with Zosyn, the same thing they gave him early on.  I asked Dr. Wicker this morning why they thought it would work now when it didn’t work a week ago and he said he wondered about that question as well and would ask the other ID docs. I’m starting to think we might get out of here within a week if all goes well.

It’s 12:30 PM and they just finished the ultra sound.  It does appear that he has a blot clot in the same vein that has the PICC line.  They have him on thinners so there might not be much more they can do, but I don’t think this is going to be a problem. We’ll have to wait to see what Dr. Hurley wants to do.  Mikie has been up in his chair for a few hours and did very well.  He was semi-awake, certainly not active, and breathing normally.  He sat up for the whole ultrasound and they did it right in the room.  He is back in his bed and resting so well we are going to both slip off for a few hours.