So what caused the author of this blog to disappear so suddenly last weekend? Well, as a few of you guessed in e-mail, it had everything to do with my knee…my new knee, the one I had installed last September 28th.
It went rather well, I thought…that operation, I mean. And the recovery, too. There was pain but, you know, you can get philosophical about these things. There would have been pain if I hadn't replaced the knee, too…and that pain would have been getting increasingly worse as opposed to the pain from the new knee, which was lessening each day, well on its way towards a goal of zero discomfort. I was getting around on the new knee with some twinges and some awkwardness but as late as Friday morning, October 30, I was telling someone that it had gone as well as one could expect and that I was real glad I got it done when I did.
Friday afternoon, it started going not as well as one could expect.
Friday afternoon, the knee began hurting and swelling and turning the color of the Pink Panther's junk. I tried icing it and Tylenoling it but by Saturday afternoon, I was in agony and by evening, I was considering gnawing off everything from mid-thigh downward. I thought of going into the hospital emergency room but realized it was Halloween and the place might be a little overpopulated and freaky. The following morning when I did go in, a lady there told me, "If you had come in last night, we'd probably be getting to you about now."
Sunday morn, it took one hour before a doctor saw me and about a fifth of that time for her to say that my whole leg — the knee plus everywhere south of that where the knee drained — was acutely infected. Two surgeons were called in and they aspirated the knee, inserting hypodermic needles to draw out fluid. They filled about eight syringes before they got all that was easily removable.
That fluid is now residing in various petri dishes and incubators around the Southern California area as scientists attempt to identify exactly which strain of bacillus it is. Something is growing in the "broth" as they call it and twice a day, a wizened doctor who's been treating me and who specializes in such matters, phones up the lab to ask if there are any new clues. Last we heard, they were zeroing in on a precise identification but were about 99% certain that the various intravenous antibiotics I've been receiving all week were the right ones to purge the unwelcome visitor from my system. To be 100% sure, they need to know what it is.
The intravenous antibiotics started right after the knee aspirating. They're still going on and will for approximately six more weeks. To make this easier, I've made another new addition to my body — a thing called a PICC Line, the PICC part standing for "Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter. It will remain implanted in my left upper arm until such time as I no longer need it. It's like a semi-permanent intravenous valve which makes it easier for nurses to hook up intravenous feeds and collect blood, and easier for the patient to hook up his own intravenous feed — as I'll be doing until about the time ABC runs A Charlie Brown Christmas this year.
Does this all sound ghastly? Well, you haven't heard the worst part yet. On Monday, the surgeon who so deftly installed my new knee took me back into the operating room — a cleaner one than last time, one hopes — and opened the knee up again along the old incision. They cleaned everything in there, replaced some parts of the new knee, then closed me up. I am now trying to recuperate from the damage done by this grand reopening…but as I keep reminding myself, it had to be done.
So that's why I abandoned you, dear followers. I have a few more weeks of recovery but I'm out of that hospital where blogging was awkward and a non-constructive distraction. I will soon catch up on e-mail and deadlines and promised postings and such. And lest anything I've written here worry my friends, let me assure them that I will be fine. This was caught in plenty o' time and is totally treatable. Just view it as a real annoying, painful thing to happen to anyone — and doubly so when the anyone is you.