We had our hopes raised and then dashed today and for an hour or two we thought we would be heading home today. Michael had a rough night last night with coughing, a splurt of hives and a dash of mild fever, and being up all night going to the bathroom from the TPN. This morning his hem (blood doctor) came in and said that nothing had grown and they believed the first culture must have been contaminated and that she was comfortable with him going home. I talked to the nurse as I felt uneasy as *something* was obviously up for him to be doing any kind of fever and his coughing was really awful although everyone agreed it was keeping stuff up and out of his lungs. We hadn’t met with his pulmonologist yesterday so she called and he stopped over to see Michael. He said his lungs sounded good for him and, like the hem, was comfortable sending him home after they did a different culture way down his nose into his throat and that he would call something in tomorrow if any infection was running around there. I still felt uneasy about it but I understand it is important for him to *not* be in the hospital if at all possible so as not to catch something there, so I told Michael that it looked like he would be going home. He was half asleep and said he didn’t want to go home (a first time in 19 years), shocked, I asked him why, and he said he was too sick to go home and went back to sleep. Ten minutes later, his hem Dr. zipped in and said, “Um, sorry, but you aren’t going anywhere.” Apparently Michael knows his own body, the culture from yesterday (which was *after* he was nailed with some heavy hitting antibiotics) had grown more than one type of germ/bacteria/infection whatever you will.

So they did a culture down his nose and into his throat for his lung doctor, we’ll see what that shows tomorrow on that end. The plan is to hit him again with the “big gun” antibiotic that they hit him with Monday and changed up the secondary antibiotic to one they hope is more effective killing the bacteria. As I understand it, the goal is to hit hard and knock it out of his system before it can overwhelm his system and put his body in shock (sepsis). His nurse said not to expect to go home until sometime next week, so we’ll just take it a day at a time.

Hopefully he gets more sleep tonight since it isn’t a TPN night (which makes him go to the bathroom all night), we could use a good night sleep!