6-20-2022 I've tested negative for now.

(Tricia)

As soon as Ed came home to let us know of his positive COVID test, I took one of the tests we had on hand. The first test came back negative, thank goodness! However, the instructions say that if a person is asymptomatic, as I am, I need to take another test in 24 hours just to be sure.  So, I'm going to be nervous until I take the second one tomorrow.  I'm going to test Linda this afternoon.

Ed and I had been planning on getting our second COVID boosters this week--too little, too late where that is concerned. However, if I test negative tomorrow, I'm making an appointment immediately for the booster!

This, after all of the excitement on Friday when we lost power for six hours. It always stays interesting. Exhausting, but interesting.

As Marilyn said, the caregiver who was here went home soon after Ed got here, so I've been on my own for most of the day. It's actually good practice, because at some point, we're going to have to reduce the number of hours we have a caregiver here. Having so much coverage will only make financial sense for so long. But when Linda first went into hospice care, things were not looking good and I was a mess. Having a caregiver here at all times was a godsend. 

However, Linda is (dare I say) improving, at least up to a point. All of Linda's vitals that had caused the doctors at the hospital to give us no choice but hospice--blood sugar levels, respiration, heart rate, and blood pressure--have all normalized. We even had a virtual appointment with Linda's endocrinologist last week, and that doctor has ordered a glucose monitor for Linda, so we won't have to do finger sticks any longer.

Once Linda's numbers began to stabilize, it seemed wrong to wait for the infection in her hip to get out of control. At that point, though, I was still worried about the antibiotics for the hip triggering another episode of C.diff. So, I called Dr. Dubberke, an infectious disease doctor with BJC who is the only C.diff specialist in the area. I actually had scheduled an appointment for Linda with this doctor back in March--we had waited four months for that appointment, but when it came, Linda was in the hospital recovering from her second hip surgery. At that time, she was being seen by the infectious disease doctor at Mo-Bap, so I had asked the Mo-Bap doctor if I should reschedule that appointment with Dr. Dubberke, or if he would oversee her care where C.diff is concerned. He said that he would oversee her care and told me to cancel without rescheduling. So I did. 

Stupid, stupid me. When she had C.diff this last time, which sent her to the hospital, that same doctor who promised me he would oversee her care wouldn't even come to the room. I swear, whatever trust I had in the medical system has been pretty much destroyed by this whole experience. 

That said, I decided to call Dr. Dubberke and just ask him whether we could treat the C.diff and the hip infectious effectively at the same time. And bless him and his nurse practitioner--they actually took my question, regarding a patient they had never actually seen, and called me back with an answer: Yes, we can treat both. I could not believe they would be kind enough to field my question, but they did. So, we got the hospice doctor to prescribe vancomycin for the C.diff and amoxicillin for the hip. Linda has been on both for about 12 days. The vancomycin, however, runs out on the 22nd, and the hospice doctor is reluctant to prescribe more. So, I'm not certain what will happen after that point.  But for now, Linda has no symptoms of C.diff and the hip looks stable.

The hospice agency, too, has been surprised that Linda has improved. When the nurse was here last, he told me that they will see how Linda does over the next few weeks. The next date for re-evaluation is August 5. If we get to that point without incident, and Linda remains as she is or continues to improve, Medicare will no longer cover hospice, so we will step Linda down to palliative care. I am also planning to make an official appointment with Dr. Dubberke.

But I have learned never to count on anything staying the same, where Linda is concerned. I'm trying to prepare myself for disaster to strike once again, but right now, at this moment, she is doing well. If things stay this way until August 5, then we'll enter a whole new phase once again.

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