In Focus

If you read last week’s editorial, you know that my mom was hospitalized because of a blood infection.

She is now home from the hospital, and I get to be her nurse.

On Friday, I made the trek to Minneapolis to pick her up. The problem was that there was so much construction around the hospital, and parking ramps were closed off, so I was clueless about where to actually go. Oh, and my GPS tried to kill me by sending me in the wrong direction on a one-way street. That was awesome (heavy sarcasm).

After a wonderful nurse talked me through how to get to the valet, I made my way through the maze of a hospital to get to my mother’s room. It was my first time seeing her with no hair. She was restless and ready to go home, but we had to do training first on her medication.

She has a PICC line (a long, thin tube that’s inserted through a vein in your arm and passed through to the larger veins near your heart which is used for long-term intravenous antibiotics, nutrition or medications and for blood draw) and I get to give her a daily syringe of antibiotics for the next three weeks. They informed me that they were unable to find home health care, so I get to take her to the hospital once a week to have the dressings on the PICC line changed. 

She will receive three weeks of syringe antibiotics and then three weeks of oral antibiotics.

At this time, they cannot do surgery on her pacemaker, where the leads are infiltrated with the infection and growing bacteria. The treatment we are currently doing will keep it at bay.

Then, she can hopefully start chemotherapy again. 

She has been tired and her legs sore, but she walks around the block and rests a lot. She’s still getting used to being unable to or not being allowed to do some of her regular things—the joys of having a zero immune system. 

Overall, she seems a lot better, but it will be a long road ahead for the next few months.