Week at Home

This is Becky - sorry, Tara will return to blogging sometime this weekend!  First of all our highlight of this week at home was our Wednesday night; which Tara wants to blog about personally.  Just so all you Wednesday night people know you are loved and you made our day, week, month, etc.!

Okay, I've been getting questions about the antibiotics so here goes...... We did find the "germs" that Tara has in her head.  For all you science peoples out there the name of them are.....Bacillus Species..... and........Propiomibacterium Species.  I made Dr. Kumy (infectious disease doctor) write them down. It's good that the germ grew in the cultures so they know exactly WHAT to treat!  Tara is on Vancomycin 1250 mg for all the rest of you science peoples.  We are on "home health care" so a home health nurse shows up at our house once a week to draw blood for labs and change the needle (access) on Tara's port.  She is on IV Vancomycin; but it doesn't hurt because she just sticks the ball of antibiotic through her port and it works out great!  She is mobile - she can carry her ball of antibiotics with her wherever she wants to; so now she can return to work and hopefully go out of town for Spring Break!!  She has a dose every 8 hours; 6 am, 2 pm, and 10 pm.  The only tricky part is she has to be awake after the medicine is finished dispersing itself (it takes 2 hours) so for you Math people, she only gets 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep per night; so that means she will definitely need a long nap every day.  She will be on this for 6 weeks.

This week has been tough - Tara really hasn't felt well and has still had quite a bit of pain.  I'm remembering the last surgery and in a few days, she would have been getting married!  Last time Dr. Berger said she would feel 80% in 2 weeks, and that was true; but this time is more difficult.  Probably because she was weaker going IN to surgery (because of chemo for 7+ months) and this antibiotic makes her sick to her stomach, which makes eating difficult.  Dennis Crandall paid a visit to Tara after picking his daughter up from piano and pretty much ORDERED Tara to eat; so I was very thankful for that.  She was mentioning that food just didn't taste good and makes her sick; but he said "tough - eat it anyway!"  Gotta love that!  So, nice peoples have been dropping off food to tempt Tara's palate - thank you all!

Tara has been on Percaset (spelling?) a narcotic pain killer all week; but was told today not to take it anymore! Yea!  Dr. Smith does not want her addicted to that nasty stuff.  It works great for the acute pain you have after surgery; but now she is to take Advil unless is gets really bad.  Tara lost 10 pounds!  Her clothes are bagging on her.  Hopefully she will gain it back. She started eating again on Wednesday.  Her energy level is quite low; but Wednesday evening she surfaced and she also got her hair washed and cut a little on Wednesday which was very exciting!  Tara will post pictures...  Thursday she tanked - must have been up too much on Wednesday; and today she felt a little better.  So, hopefully she is turning the corner upwards and recovery will start to pick up.

Dr. Smith took her stitches and staples out today - yea!  Now she can more easily wash her head.  He once again said how happy he was with the surgery and said she has to put off chemo another week to give herself time to beat this infection.  They are taking this infection SERIOUSLY and are not messing around!  He also told Tara to get outside (wear sunglasses because the sun bothers her eyes) and breathe and basically in my words, "rejoin the living." So, we celebrated by going to lunch with Step and Brigham today. Now Tara is worn out; however, but we are glad she can even do a few outings!

Love you all so much - your prayers and love have kept us going and have helped Tara eat!