I hear ya…

Well, I got a few emails this week asking for an update since I hadn’t updated this page (so I guess I do have readers, I really do!!!). Because I can take a hint, here’s the latest.

I had my day surgery on Monday and it was day surgery – I came home at the end of the day, unfortunately not without a new stent. I knew this was a possibility but I was hoping to avoid it. Dr. Karian removed the large stent, but felt I needed to keep a stent in until we decide on our future plan because the ureter did not look like it was going to stay open without some help. It’s a lot smaller and less painful than the last one and by now I’m so used to having something inside me that I barely notice it. During the procedure Dr. Karian was able to scope, inject a dye, and take a few more biopsies. We all assume the biopsies will be scar tissue as the last ones were. The dye showed that the kidney and bladder are functioning just fine as long as the ureter is open, and the scope didn’t show anything new, just confirmed our thoughts that the ureter is being compromised by scar tissue near the bladder.

We still don’t have a new plan. I’ll be talking to Dr. Karian in the next week (after the biopsy results are in) to make some decisions. I think we are all finally in agreement that surgery is inevitable. I’d rather do it sooner and begin to put this behind me, but there is another school of thought that would prefer to take it slower and rule out all non-surgical options before cutting me open. There have been a few complications with the option of shortening the ureter and moving my kidney down into my abdomen. Apparently this is considered auto-transplant surgery. I’m the donor and the recipient, but because it is still transplant surgery and Mt. Auburn Hospital does not perform transplant surgery. I really don’t want to go elsewhere, though there are several hospitals in Boston that do perform this procedure so I won’t have to go to DC or Omaha, but I love my team at Mt. Auburn.

And because it just wouldn’t be me if there weren’t another monkey wrench to toss into the mix, when I was being admitted for my surgery the nurses immediately moved me to a private room. This is highly unusual for day surgery prep. There is one larger room where everyone waits to be wheeled into the OR and listens in on what’s going on with the surrounding patients. Then the nurse says to me in passing, “We’ll be taking the usual mersa precautions with you.” I looked at her and said “mersa?” She said, “You tested positive for MRSA – Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus so we will all be taking contact precautions”. This was the first I had heard of this – I don’t even know who or when I was tested for it, but basically it’s a certain type of antibiotic resistant staph infection. I’m already allergic to Penicillin, which is the resistant antibiotic, so I shouldn’t really have too many problems because of it. They assume I picked it up during one of my recent hospital visits. It also most likely explains my toe infection – which didn’t respond to the antibiotics I took for it. (The good news is that it appears to be responding to the antibiotics I am on after my day surgery, so I might be able to avoid having that toenail removed – woohoo!!)

I don’t exactly know what the repercussions of MRSA will be and if it’s something that I’ll be able to get rid of eventually, but I do know that it means I get a private room whenever I’m at the hospital. I’ll get more info from the nurses next week and do my usual diligent online research. My break from Erbitux has given my side effects a chance to calm down (though my recent rounds of antibiotics wreaked havoc with my diarrhea). I’m scratching a lot less, the scratches on my face are healing and I haven’t had any new breakouts. Both Pat and I are sleeping better and I’ve managed to sleep through the night once or twice this week.

No fun stuff to share this week. It’s been work and hospital/doctor visits lately – no movies or any other entertainment either (I think that’s because we’ve seen all we wanted to, not because I don’t feel well enough to do anything). We have no travel plans for the near future, though we are hoping to get some skiing in before the season is over (or at least Pat is). We’ve been staying close to home on weekends and that’s where we’ll be for the next couple of weeks. If anyone finds themselves in the Boston area – give us a shout! I can usually stay awake for a few hours on weekends.