2 Weeks and 3 days after surgery and we are back at Duke

Joe started running a high fever this morning and called me at work around 10:45am telling me that he had a fever of 102.3 degrees and that he had called the surgeons office and they told him to get to the Duke Emergency Department ASAP.  So off to the house I went, threw a few necessities in a bag (or course leaving 2 very important things out - cell phone chargers & Joe's eyeshades for sleeping) and off to the ED we went.  We got there around 11:40am and by 11:55am we were in an exam room where Joe could lie down.  The nurse was in within 5 minutes and the Emergency Internal Medicine physician within 10 minutes.  Blood drawn, x-rays and a CT scan soon followed.  By 4:30pm, we had seen several doctors.  Then just before 5pm, Dr. Tyler, Joe's surgeon and 4 of his associates all crammed into the little exam room to take a look.  Apparently the scans showed that everything internally was fine but that a possible hematoma had occured near the lower end of his incision.  A hematoma is a pocket or localized collection of blood usually in liquid form within the tissue.  Most times the hematoma will just be obsorbed into the body.  However in this case it did not and a bacterial infection insued.  Therefore, Dr. Tyler told them what he wanted done, left the room and the chief resident started to work with the 3 other doctors watching and trying to answer the questions she posed to them as she got to work.  She removed the staples from his incision from about mid-way to the bottom, thus opening up the incision and exposing all the pockets of blood, or hematoma.  They used sponges to soak up the blood and then packed the open incision with sticky gauze packing and then a large dressing over it and taped it down.  The bottom line, Joe has a large mass of gauze stuck down inside his belly. 
We finally moved up to the 2nd floor surgical unit around 9pm into room 2112, just up the hall 4 rooms from where he was 2 weeks ago.  


After getting in the room I went to the parking garage to retrieve his toiletries and some clothes, stopped at the cafe on the 1st floor on my way back and picked us both up some dinner (neither of us had eaten today)  and Joe has currently settled into his extended length hospital bed and is barely able to keep his eyes open.  Barring interruptions, which I'm sure will happen every 4 hours minimum, I think both of us will sleep well tonight.  Maybe even make it until his breakfast at 9am.  Since both our phones are nearing the end of their battery life, if someone needs to call please try either Joe's phone (his has more battery) or call the room at 919-681-2112.   


It is now nearly midnight, the basketball game is over and we are going to sleep.


***PS*** 9am was just a pipe dream.  The first surgical resident was in just before 6am and removed the gauze packing from his belly, re-packed it and dressed it and left.  This was followed by the nurse doing vitals, giving him his paid meds and he is back off to sleep.  As I type it is 7am and Dr. Tyler is due in somwhere around 7:30am.  But since the nurses change shifts at 7am anyway, I didn't see any reason to even attempt sleep since there is always plenty of activity during the shift changes.  Joe however, after getting his pain meds is fast asleep again.  Too bad he's doomed to be re-awakened very soon.