Still Alive & Kicking

Quick update: I am still in the hospital even though I was told I'd maybe go home on Monday, then probably would leave in Tuesday, then was told I be released on Wednesday. Today, I was told I may be here a few to several more days.

The reason for the extended stay, bacteria in my blood. Bacteria clumps in the bloodstream can cause the type if stroke I suffered which was due to an embolism, or in my case multil emboli. 

At first they ran two blood cultures, consisting of a blood sample from each of my arms, for gram-positive bacteria. They did the same for gram-negative bacteria. The reason they take a sample of blood and run separate cultures for the samples from each arm is to see if both come out positive. If both are positive, they figure you have whichever bactetia gram-negative or gram-positive they just cultured. If only one arm's blood is a positive cultunre, they figure maybe the sample was contaminated.

At first I was positive for gram-negative bacteria but only from one arm. They tested me again yesterday for both gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria in both arms. Today the result was that the blood from both arms cultured positive for gram-positive bacteria. They said they're going going to put me on antibiotics. I said not until I talk to the doctor first. I wanted to know why the first test showed only one tube culturing for gram-negative bacteria and did not show anything for gram-positive bacteria but now the second test showed I tested positive for gram-positive;  yet, gram-negative bacteria were not found at all in the 2nd test.

The doctor said he would go to the microbiology lab to check up on my question and would get back to me before administering any antibiotics. Tonight the nurse administered the antibiotics even though I have not seen the doctor again.  The nurse did show me a computer screen saying that I had tested positive for gram-positive bacteria in my blood. She also showed me that the order for the antibiotics came a couple to few hours after I spoke to that doctor. She then said I could wait to see the doc tomorrow but what she showed me was good enough for me to say pump me up.

When I had seen that doctor, he told me that I would be here for a few to several more days if I needed the antibiotics. They are administrating them intravenously; so, I guess that means it's best done here in the hospital. Hopefully I will get out by the weekend but if not maybe my son will be able to visit me.

By the way, had no Internet access due to my phone dying and my phone charger not working, otherwise I would have given an update sooner.

Thanks to all who left well wishes in the comments to my previous post on this.

All the best,

Glenn B