For better or for worse, In sickness and in health

You might think I am talking about marriage vows, but I am not. I am talking about life. When we get married, we get to choose who we marry then make the commitment that no matter what comes our way we will deal with it, good or bad. However, life is not like that. We are just sent to earth and have to face all sorts of challenges.

Dan was back in the hospital about a week ago. He had been having a pain in his side, but after a couple visits to the Dr.'s they concluded it was just pain from healing from his past surgeries. They did say though... if the pain gets worse or you have a fever come back. Well Sunday August 7th Dan had had a fever for a couple of days and the pain was getting worse. We made a usual trip to the ER that night around 7pm. The ER was packed and the admitting guy said there were no rooms available, but he recognized me and said he could get us in one. Sad this is our 4th time in the ER since April, but nice to get priority treatment. The ER Dr. was great. We had called Dan's surgeon on the way (yes we have his personal cell phone number) and he called ahead giving the ER a heads up we were coming and needed a CT scan ordered. Dan got to drink the lovely contrast as usual and was wheeled away.

The results came back and Dan had developed a LARGE abscess (pocket of infection) on the left side of his abdomen. The ER Dr. was surprised Dan had gone so long with such a large abscess. They called Med Surg (the 3rd floor) and said Dan needed a room. We DO NOT like Med Surg and requested to room on the 1st floor Telemetry. Once again since we are frequents at the hospital they accommodated. It was after midnight at this point. We were welcomed by familiar faces of nurses we have had during prior visits. I got Dan all settled in and went home to sleep.

The plan was for Dan to go to radiology in the morning and get the abscessed drained. We should have know things are never that easy for us. Dan had been on serious blood thinners for blood clots he developed after his last surgery. The good news was that the blood clots are gone, but his blood was too thin to have the procedure done Monday so they started giving him plasma to help thicken it up. They rescheduled the draining for the next morning. Once again, Tuesday came and went and Dan's blood was STILL too thin and needed more plasma... He ended up getting 8 bags of plasma before his blood was thick enough.

Wednesday afternoon they took him in. They sucked out as much of the puss/infection as possible then inserted a drain that drained to a bag outside his body. We then had to just wait for the cultures to come back so the Dr. would know what antibiotics to send Dan home on. Unfortunately, one test takes 72 hours. All the results were finally in on Sunday and we headed home.

Dan with his drain

Poor Dan was sent home with the drain and won't have it removed until after he gets another CT scan this week and they can see that the infection is gone. We feel soooo blessed that this wasn't another leak and that surgery wasn't required!! But, it is still hard to be going through this. Another full week in the hospital for him, and me ready to pop. The big joke the whole time was that if I went into labor Dan and I could just share a room.

So life... For better or for worse, In sickness and in health we have to deal with you. Dan didn't sign up for all of this, but he is dealing with it like a champ. I know there are many ups and downs to come in life, so I will take them as they come and put our trust in God that He is watching over us!