Another Hospital Stay

Cheryl has been having some pain and redness on the side of her right calf since mid-March. When she saw Dr. Burke on March 16th, the area was about 2X3 inches and slightly red. He had a deep ultrasound done to rule out a deep vein thrombosis and the scan came back okay. He referred her back to our family practice. By the time she got in to their office, the area of pain and swelling was several inches long and substantially wider. They made a preliminary diagnosis of superficial thrombophlebitis and put her on Keflex (antibiotic) for several days which did nothing to slow the spread of the effected area.

On her return visit to Dr. Tomus' office, they changed her diagnosis to cellulitis and discontinued the Keflex and put her on Cipro and Cleocin (antobiotics) and gave her Vicodin for pain. Over the next several days, the pain increased and the area grew larger extending about three inches past where the NP (nurse practitioner) had marked on her last visit.

Which get us to this afternoon. The NP and doctor reviewed Cheryl's blood work and did not see an increased white count. Her hemoglobin is at 11 vs 12 but overall, the rest of her panel was in normal range. Dr. Tomus determined that the next course of action has to be hospitalization for IV antibiotics and additional pain meds to get this under control. He called in to Memorial Health in Savannah and coordinated a direct admit so we didn't have to go through the usual ER hassles.

After Cheryl was processed and was waiting to be sent to a room, we had a chance to meet with Dr. Ignacio who will be managing her care. He said that the course of treatment could take as long as five days to get the infection under control.

Before I left the hospital this evening, the had already given Cheryl her first IV bag of antibiotic and also gave her a shot of morphine to help ease her pain. The good news is, cellulitis is not normally life-threatening but it is extremely painful and can advance to other problems if it is not taken care of adequately.

Please pray that the antibiotics will be effective and that Cheryl will be released as soon as possible.

Wednesday Morning Update

Just got off the phone with Cheryl. She is feeling less pain in her right leg this morning. They did an ultrasound of her left calf since she was also having some pain there as well and they've discovered a new deep vein thrombosis. Her meds have been adjusted and they will now be monitoring the DVT on the left leg along with the cellulitis on the right leg.

Wednesday Afternoon Update

The vascular doctors have decided that Cheryl has DVT in both legs. They are going over her information to determine what else needs to be done. As of now, she will be adding Lovenox injections to her daily routine and it looks as if they will insert a filter in the inferior vena cava to prevent these clots and any future clots from migrating to the lungs (pulmonary embolism),heart or brain. We should know more by this evening.