Remember that October 20th surgery date? Well, that ain't happening.
Here's the story...
Last Thursday (actually 2 Thursdays ago now) Zach had some blood and other bodily fluids drawn for his pre-op lab work.
That Friday Janine got a frantic call from Zach's surgeon's office because the test for clotting ability of his blood came back with a reading off the charts. Apparently most hemophiliacs have better clotting than Zach does, and the mere act of blinking his eyes would probably cause him to bleed to death...
Of course the fact that Zach has never had any issues like this before led me to believe that somebody must have screwed up the test. Still, Janine had to run him back to the hospital to have the test done again. What do you know - this time it came back just fine.
Apparently because the blood was drawn from Zach's port, it was contaminated by Heparin - an anti-clotting drug that they use to flush out the port at each infusion.
Okay, well that's fixed - we're ready to go - or maybe not...
So Janine gets another call last Friday that Zach's nasal swab came back positive for MRSA. This is one of those anti-biotic resistant flesh eating type bacteria. Lovely. Apparently this bug can live quite happily in the nasal passages for years without any ill effects to the host. It's actually quite common in the medical field, and usually doesn't cause any major problems.
However, if it gets into the bloodstream it can be fatal. So, the bacteria needs to be cleared up before any type of surgery can take place. (Seems sensible to me)
The surgeon's office referred us to an infectious disease specialist for treatment. Of course he doesn't have any appointments available until the 30th...
Now, a couple of things to think about there...
First, if you are an infectious disease specialist, wouldn't you want patients in as soon as possible? Since they could you know - INFECT PEOPLE. Of course that could be a good way of ensuring a steady stream of patients... What's that you say Mr. Townsley? Your doctor says you have Tuberculosis? Well let's see, we can squeeze you in sometime in December. In the meantime spend as much time as possible in crowded places - malls, airplanes, schools - places like that.
Now the second thing to consider is this: Is this the doctor's office you want to be waiting in? Surrounded by people with INFECTIOUS DISEASES. ARGHHH!!! Everybody would be looking at me like I'm strange because I'd be sitting there in a bio-hazard suit. People don't go to an infectious disease specialist because they have a cold. You know these people gotta be carrying around some type of superbug that a normal doctor is afraid to deal with.
One thing I do have to say is that any doctor that specializes in infectious diseases has to have balls of steel. (Or a really good supply of bio-hazard suits)
In any case, we weren't up for waiting two weeks so we got Zach an appointment with his pediatrician for this morning. He got Zach set up with a 10 day cycle of medication that should get the MRSA cleared out. We'll get the nasal swab done again next Thursday to be sure.
After that we'll re-schedule the surgery.
My new saying... "MPS - it's not just a job, it's an adventure".
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