Yesterday, exactly a year to the day before our wedding, Drew was admitted to San Ramon Regional Medical center. It's just down the street from the house he grew up in, where his parents still live. They were in Tahoe for the week so they had to come home a day early. He was told he had to go to the hospital by the home nurse when she saw his second pressure sore on Friday. She hadn't seen it in a week since a different nurse came on Monday, so it was even more dramatic for her to see how much it has grown. But I agreed he needed to go to the hospital. Drew resisted initially but then also agreed as long as we didn't go to John Muir. Due to the dissatisfactory care he received at John Muir Medical, both their wound care clinic and the hospital where he had the first pressure sore extracted, we chose to go elsewhere this time. So far we have been happy with the care at San Ramon Medical. Especially by the wound ostomy doctor, Bill Bryson (no joke!), who described everything he was doing when he assessed both areas yesterday. He was very concerned about not only the new sore but also the bone exposure in the orginal wound area. Although we had been told by wound care that the infection had been conquered in the space where the first sore was (now a smaller hole that has been healing and filling in with new tissue since November), the Wound Ostomist told us he doubted the infection is gone. Especially since the bone is showing and the skin and tissue haven't completely healed over after 9 months with the wound vacuum. The fact that it smelled really bad seemed a bad sign to me, too. According to Dr Garry at wound care, the bone had been showing in late May but by the beginning of this month no longer was exposed. Absolute degligence.

Drew has been in pretty good spirits knowing that he should get better care there. But he has had a hard time breaking his fever, due to the infection. It keeps shooting up to 103 by the afternoon. It was hot there today, 99 deg. Also the nurses had difficulty finding a vein to set up the IV antibiotic to start fighting the infection. It took them several times and Drew a lot of pain to get it in a vein properly. They had it in his left hand originally but it slipped out and caused his hand and wrist area to swell today. He's left handed so this afternoon they tried doing the new one in his right hand and then arm but had no success. He was getting very unhappy cuz it hurt and he had the chills from his fever. That probably didn't help them find a vein. The same happened to me in January when I was sick and he made ME go to the hospital. But he usually had no problem as he's so used to having it done and has good veins. Finally someone thought they had it in his right hand. When they came later to start the IV dose it swell up a patch of his hand skin in a bubble. We stopped it and they tried again. They finally did get it to work in his right arm. By that point he was exhausted and I left.


I'm very tense about what we found out on Friday through the Wound Ostomist. And it was a stressful day trying to get the IV administered. I've never seen Drew look in such pain and actually scared. He's never scared. He's been through everything so he fears little. But the first pressure sore, which was SO large, and the negligance about both of them by wound care has led to major problems. Please think of and pray for him, his family and I this week.

Thank you