May Wrap-up

Well we avoided having to return to FA clinic early this week. They have put Elias back on the Vancomycin which if you remember is toxic if given too much. There was significant discussion among the team about the decision to put him back on this for the C-diff, but it appears for the second time it is not sensitive to the other typical drug Flagyl. I think one thought was to just not treat it at all since his symptoms were not severe, but with the upcoming surgery in a few weeks it needs to be nipped in the bud. The nurse for the Colorectal Team called yesterday to pass on the itinerary for the surgery week and I passed the infection knowledge on to her. She was unable to answer if this would cause concern for moving forward especially since the antibiotics course will not end until 2 days prior. We do not think it will be an issue unless the medicine does not cure the problem. Elias is showing improvement overall though. He is less tired and is almost back to his normal self.

As for the surgery itself, it appears we were right after all. We will be admitted the day before and will spend 3-5 days inpatient, ugh. Dr Levitt told us in the appointment 1-2 days. We have a follow-up early July with Dr. Pena to check the healing as well as discuss and learn the care management post surgery, which we too questioned in the appointment and were told there would be none. He just forgot to tag for a few weeks on to that statement. So we are trying to mentally prepare ourselves for that as well as the hospitalization.

The nursing did not improve since we reported “by the numbers.” We ended the month with only 12 of 62 shifts worked overall. This week has not been any better as the nurse “forgot it was a holiday” on Monday. She did not realize this until she went to drop her child off at daycare and realized they were closed. That was the claim honest to God. Don’t daycare centers usually give notices when they will be closed? Regardless, it was a holiday and there was NO one to care for this child? Today was a planned miss for the part-time job. It was decided that she can not work both in the same day when she has to go there first since she never knows if she will have to stay past the 3-4 hours and she can’t stay later than 6 it seems to get the hours in for various reasons. So that puts us a 4 days per week going forward automatically. The nursing agency themselves have done little to address the situation of course, but who is surprised by that. This has really left us exhausted trying to cover around the clock with all the issues he has had this past month especially. I have to cut this update a little short and try to post more tomorrow. We are very behind on everything as well from the lack of staffing as we usually accomplish most of those things when the nurse is here. No shortage of things to do that is for sure.