Thursday, December 8, 2011

Flesh Eating Bacteria...

My husband's mom and dad. He is also known as ~Papa~. He is the most kind, genuine, soft spoken, generous, unselfish, Godliest man I have ever met. A wonderful and loving husband, father, grandfather, and father-in-law.


I wish I was posting pictures of my new wood stove full of fire and heat. First issue was that the tile was not set properly therefore all the tiles popped off the floor. One assumption is because of the varathane on the wood. So my husband purchased concrete board to put down under the tile.

However, that evening we received horrible news from California. Nick, my husband's dad was not feeling well and was at the doctors. First went in for what appeared to be a torn pec muscle. He had a slight swollen lump near his armpit, by that evening he was in so much pain he was admitted and within a short time they discovered he was suffering from the beginning signs of Necrotizing Fasciitis, also known as Flesh Eating Bacteria. Within a few hours that lump and covered his chest, shoulder, arm, underneath his arm and back with black and grey decaying flesh.... yes, that fast.

My husband took a flight out Saturday afternoon to be by his dad's side and to support his family.

He was admitted into ICU on Saturday evening and within hours was fighting for his life. Not only does this bacteria eat your flesh and tissue, but also shuts your organs down. If you are not treated quickly, you could die in just 2 days, or at minimum lose a limb. Within a day, they talked about his liver numbers being elevated and the possibility of losing his arm. They immediately started him on 4 antibiotics at extra strength. He has been kept sedated due to the pain, has had 3 surgeries so far to remove dead skin and tissue and has low blood pressure. His blood is toxic and kidneys are impaired. Today they discovered an afib in his heart which means it doesn't fire normally and now on medication for that. He also received a blood transfusion today and will need dialysis tomorrow and possibly in the future.

He has a long road of recovery ahead of him. That's after this bacteria fight is over.

The stress and overload weakend my immune system and I came down with the flu...  horribly! I've been trying to keep things running normally here and even tried to bring the fake Christmas tree out. Had my boys go down in to the basement in search of a beautiful one I picked up last year. What I ended up with was a horrendous pile made out of 6 fake Christmas trees, out of the boxes, nothing labeled, limbs and parts everywhere... I'm not quite sure what happened down there over the years... but my fake trees got all piled together.

When you are sick and running a fever... that mess doesn't go over very well. I threw all those trees and tree parts outside and decided to go with the white fake tree, with white lights that I always put in my dining room. That one is easy and the tree branches don't come off, instead fold up. Told the kids that under the current circumstances, this is what we will use this year.  Pulled the 3 pieces of that tree out, stuck them together, placed it in the living room bay window, plugged it in and low and behold... the mid section doesn't light up ~sigh~

So this year, we have a white tree without lights or ornaments... that is currently laying on it's side? Funny the things that happen when you fall asleep with a high fever and exhaustion.

We are thankful for each day that passes that our Papa is still with us.

PS: I need a maid and a chef and someone to fix the stupid Christmas lights.

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