October 4, 2006

Hello all,

Firstly, I must apologize for the lack of news during the last little while. As you all know, I had knee surgery on Sept 8th and had expected a speedy recovery and to return to work in approx one weeks time.

That didn’t happen. I ran a fever daily from the day of surgery and visited several doctors/emergency clinics in the Orillia/Gravenhurst area where I was staying with my mom for the week post-op. Finally, I called North Bay Hospital and arranged to see the surgeon on Monday, the 18th.

I don’t need to give you all of the gory details but the up-shot was that they admitted me. Even though there were no beds to be had. I ended up on Paeds/Gyn Surgery at the McLaren site of the North Bay Hospital. The nurses there took wonderful care of me for the 15 days that I was their patient. Yes, I did say 15 days!! That is unheard of in this day and age of overnight stays for giving birth and short stays for other surgeries.

I was receiving IV antibiotics three times per day. My veins didn’t co-operate and most sites pooped out after 24 hours. Then, it would take 4-5 tries to get another vein. Man, am I covered with bruises. Eventually, it was decided to insert a PICC line. This is a fine catheter that enters a vein between your elbow and shoulder and terminates at the superior vena cava. Even that wasn’t easy as the first three tries didn’t work. But, eventually it was inserted.

Due to a suggestion by my sister, Karyn, (thanks, hon) I got out on passes for a few days just needing to be at the hospital at 2 pm, 10 pm and 6 am for my IV meds. So, Mur would pick me up in the morning, return me for an hour at 1:30 and then bring me back for overnight at about 9:30. I discovered just how much strength I had lost as we walked around grocery stores etc.

Murray’s cousin, Ivan, and his partner Midge have graciously taken us in for the duration of this “ordeal”. They have a condo in Callender, just outside of North Bay. If you wish to phone, we can be reached at 705-752-5204.

Then, on Tuesday, finally all of the paperwork was in place. Home Care was set up and I was discharged at about 5 pm.

We visited the VON office in North Bay last night and they hooked me up to a Prism pump which automatically delivers my doses at the required time. The pump is worn like a purse and is fed through your clothes, jackets etc. This will continue for another two weeks.

At the end of that time, if my blood results have improved substantially and all else looks good, I may be able to switch to oral antibiotics and be disconnected from the pump. If not, we will still leave this area and transfer down to St Thomas to stay at Steve’s house, near the 17th of Oct. Hopefully, we can do some visiting during our stay there and will try to connect with each of you. Long term plans? The return to the boat may be delayed somewhat but is still going to happen.

Meantime, I continue to stretch and bend my new knee and build up my strength. Mur pushes me to bend further each day. He keeps me going and is trying to tempt me to eat more. But, my appetite is way down and I have been losing too much weight (as if I would complain about that!).

So, that is what is happening here. Hope all is well with you.

Hugs, Heather & Murray