So, we are through with surgery number seven! Surgery was yesterday afternoon, and I’m now back in a regular patient room at the hospital awaiting discharge. The surgery was a complete success, and the neurosurgeon was able to remove...
So, we are through with surgery number seven! Surgery was yesterday afternoon, and I’m now back in a regular patient room at the hospital awaiting discharge. The surgery was a complete success, and the neurosurgeon was able to remove all of the infected hardware and the old prosthetic. The infection was significantly more advanced than anyone had expected, with a large build up of pus underneath the old prosthetic. That has all been removed and cleaned, and I’m just now on IV antibiotics for quite some time. Fortunately, this can be done at home by using what is known as a PICC line. I’ve had one before, and it’s a pretty neat thing that looks a lot like a chemo port, but actually feeds the antibiotics directly into the heart where the heart pumps them throughout the body. It’s a bit uncomfortable and inconvenient, but it’s better than having to go to the hospital every day for infusions. Here’s what mine looks like:
As I mentioned in the last post, the neurosurgeon is going to wait to replace the prosthetic until I’m finished with chemo, probably about a year. During that time, I’ll be walking around without a forehead, which comes with its own long list of risks and potential complications. Also, cutting out the infection also involved removing some of the skin on the forehead…that’s not a problem now since there’s no frontal plate in the way, but when they replace the frontal plane with the new prosthetic, it’s going to be a very tight fit to get the skin to close again. They’re not talking about skin grafts or any crazy things like that yet, but it is a risk. I can hardly complain…hey, free facelift!
The road ahead is largely unchanged. I’ll have at home IV infusions for several months to come, probably concurrent with chemotherapy starting in a few weeks, and we don’t yet know how this treatment plan will involve the Optune device. So, we’re in a holding pattern on that one until we know more. Nothing more to report at this point… Hopefully heading home today, keeping up the antibiotics, and starting chemo soon. Stay tuned to what looks like it will be a never-ending adventure!
