Still at the Hospital

Well it's been over a week and I am still in the hospital. Lots of things went wrong all stemming from either 1 or 2 infections.

While hiking I thought I was getting some chafing. No big deal. It's hiking. Chafing happens. This went on for most of the first 2 weeks on the trail. It was noticeable but bearable. By the time I got to the NOC it was slightly swollen but not something I felt I should worry about. I had gotten new compression shorts so o thought that would take care of it.

About the same time, near the NOC, I got a bug bite on the back of my right knee. Didn't think anything if it other than it was in an annoying spot. It looked like any other of the numerous bites I already had.

The bite kept getting worse after I left the NOC however. It got redder and had a dark spot under the skin after a few days.
By the time I got to Fontana, the bite looked pretty bad and I had some decent swelling going on, again what I thought was chafing. Walking was not pain free, but I expected it to hurt a little.

The first night in the Smokys was when I knew something was up. I had uncontrollable shakes and chills and both problems became painful.

The next day hiking was very slow to keep the pain down. The ridgerunner advised me to go to Cade's Cove but I wanted to try and make it to Gatlinburg.

Three miles later I saw that Gatlinburg was out of the question. The leg looked really bad and the chafing was really getting to me.

The day hiker who helped me out was a doctor and 100% convinced me to get off the trail and get help for the leg. I figured while the leg healed the chafing would go away.

The med stop in Tennessee gave me a ten day antibiotic treatment plus a shot for the leg. Sounded good. I would stay off the trail until after Mel's graduation. Plenty of time to rest up and heal.

That night sucked. The swelling was terrible and painful. I decided to go back to the med stop when I got home and have the chafing checked out. Good thing I did.

The med stop on Zebulon immediately sent me to the ER. The ER doc had some theories but wanted an ultrasound first. The blood tests came back with some really bad numbers for white blood cell count, indicating an infection.

I was admitted and immediately placed on no food or water in prep for probable surgery. Lots of different docs came by and finally they decided to wait until they had more info before surgery.

The ultrasound on Sunday confirmed fluid but also something else, what they thought was a hydrocele. They wanted to see if the antibiotics would reduce the swelling first so we waited.

On Monday they took me back to ultrasound for my kidneys and they looked at my bladder as well.

Then the kidney doc showed up with some bad results from the kidneys, so they modified the antibiotics trying to reduce those numbers. By Wednesday, when I had the surgery, all the numbers were heading in the right direction.

In surgery they removed the fluid and the hydrocele. They drained something over 350+ ml or cc whatever the measurement is. Like I said: swelling. Lots of swelling.

After I got back from recovery they said I would have to have to wound packed with gauze twice a day until it healed from the inside out. However, Thursday morning when the NP changed it she said it would only have to be once a day. That was good news. The bad news is that I found out that morphine takes longer than 30 seconds to work. She changed the packing literally as soon as she gave me the iv injection. That was not fun. Longest 5 minutes of my life I think. Took over 2 hours to recover from that torture.

Friday she changed it again (correctly with the pain meds!) and it had already healed more than expected. Saturday even more. Looking very good so they tell me.

As for the infections nobody can tell me for sure what happened. The bite was probably just a bite that got infected. The hydrocele was infected with MRSA and they have no clue what happened there. No evidence of any bite, cut, scrape, etc. They think that it was 2 different infections at separate times.

As of Saturday night, over a week in, everything seems to be healing nicely. The white blood cell count is almost back to normal from 20,000. My kidney numbers are looking good as well.

The kidney doc and surgery doc have said Monday for release, depending on what the infectious disease doc says. That will depend on when I can come off the IVs. The antibiotics I need are apparently iv based.

Hopefully I will be out of here Monday!