Veni, Vidi, I Caught An Infection

Here's an update as to what has been going on with me the past couple of weeks (sorry it is so long).

I'm still in Houston, currently hooked up to a feeding tube absorbing nutrients sitting in a nice apartment recovering from my second surgery.

Yes I said second surgery - everything was going awesomely: I was recovering super fast, just had my tracheostomy closed up, & was due to have my feeding tube removed on St. Paddy's day.

Then I woke up on the 16th and my face & neck were swollen up like I had a balloon under my skin.

Went in to the hospital ASAP & they realized I had an infection. They readmitted me that night & ordered blood work & a CAT scan.

The CAT scan happened at around 4am that night and after they got the results they scheduled me for another surgery on St. paddy's at around 10am.

It was the Plastic surgeon's show & unfortunately him & my main surgeon were out of town so the plastic surgeon's assistant had to reopen my neck incision in my neck & drain the infection... They warned me I'd have my trach reinserted (but my main surgeon vetoed that over the phone at the last second), drains reinserted, basically back to square one.

Surgery was much rougher than the first one. Including a terrible experience where they started before I was doped up enough: Since there was no trach, they had to run a breathing tube through my nose & into my throat. They were suppossed to get me semi conscious & numb/loopy then insert it. Since I'm a bigger guy the drugs didn't work on me fast enough & I was completely awake & sober when they started. Hose got jammed, started choking, blacked out from the pain.

In the end I survived... Found out I had MRSA (which is not good) and spent 6 days in the hospital hooked up to the strongest antibiotics they had.

Scattered in between all of this are a bunch of painful horror stories of how they Meds would blow out the vein that the IV was in making it unusable & causing my arm to swell up like a balloon (or my foot or shoulder, when they ran out of veins in my arm).

Tried morphine for the first time... Didn't stop the pain in my arm when first IV blew out my vein.

Finally got released a week ago. Found an apartment & moved out of the hotel room into it (it's pretty nice actually).

Am taking some crazy strong antibiotics to (hopefully) completely kill off the infection by my next appointment This Thursday.

Have a partially closed trach hole - which the plastic surgeon won't let heal till the infection is gone (so every day we have to stuff a piece of gauze into the tiny hole in my neck using a stick). Also have two huge surgical drains hanging off my neck/shoulder to hopefully catch any remnants of the infection.

I'm doing better every day, but all this has thrown off everyone's schedule.

Won't know when radiation can start till they are sure more infection.

Also been on this feeding tube for almost a month now (only meant for me to be on it 2 weeks at most) would kill a baby for the chance to eat real food (especially since my meds react poorly with the food).

Slowly regaining my ability to speak normally (tongue would be healed but during the surgery doc added a few extra stitches just to be safe) - tongue fits back completely inside my mouth though - hooray.