Trials and tribulations

Just when we thought we could finally be on the road to recovery, a four letter word stopped us in our tracks and is scaring the living daylights out of us - MRSA.  Joshua started acting differently Tuesday night.  His temperature was up a bit, he was crying more, couldn't be consoled, and didn't want his pacifier.  The most alarming sign was the bloody discharge oozing from both sides of his wound.  Our nurse and nurse practitioner that night checked him out and told us it was nothing to worry about.  Yeah, right.

By Wednesday afternoon Joshua had spiked a high fever, his heart rate was over 200, and his incision was oozing pus.  When our surgeon arrived she seemed pretty upset that no one had told her Josh's wound had changed from the day before.  She immediately cut through a few stitches to release the pressure on the wound and squeezed out a bunch of pus.  Josh was not on any pain meds at the time and it was awful to watch him go through this.  He was started on antibiotics, given a bolus of fluids to try and bring his heart rate down, and tylenol to bring his fever down.  The fluids helped temporarily, but his heart rate stayed between 215-230 and even got as high as 242 during the late afternoon and early evening.  I was (and still am) completely freaked out by how sick he was.  Cultures were sent to the lab and we anxiously waited to learn what type of infection he had.  This morning we got the answer and it was the last thing we wanted to hear.  MRSA is an antibiotic resistant staph infection that is common in hospitals and can be a real bitch to get rid of since it does not respond to certain antibiotics.

Josh has been on two antibiotics - Vancomycin and Meropenem - since Wednesday and the Vancomycin seems to be working.  His heart rate is back to normal and his fever has subsided for the most part.  Our surgeon told us yesterday that his wound looks "100 times better" than it did on Wednesday.  The problem now is managing Josh's pain.

Joshua is in significant pain just about any time he moves and especially during diaper changes when you have to lift his legs towards his belly.  The antibiotics gave Josh diarrhea which is causing a bad diaper rash and is also uncomfortable to him so he needs frequent diaper changes.  It's a vicious, painful circle for him and it's driving us mad.

He was on a combination of morphine, tylenol, and ativan, but was still in pain today.  Josh responded well to toradol after his surgery so I requested this non-opiate pain killer be added to his regimen.  He received his first dose a few hours ago and has been resting more comfortably since.

Watching and listening to your child suffer and being powerless to do anything about it is life's greatest agony.  It is simply dreadful.

Joshua is still continuing to drink his measly 5 cc ration of milk even through his infection.  He will not be allowed more milk until his diarrhea clears up, but his diarrhea will not get better until he gets off the antibiotics which can't happen until the infection is gone.  So we are once again in purgatory not moving forward until we can get past this latest obstacle.

Joshua the way we want to see him these days - asleep so he is not in pain.