So... after three days out of commission then four in the hospital, this is what I can report. I went in to Mount Sinai on Monday with fever, chills, leg pain, headache and a heart racing at twice the normal speed. It looked like a case of Cellulitis (a common infection of the dermis exacerbated by inactivity) that had progressed rather rapidly but they wanted to do tests, run some cultures and find out exactly what it was. Their first concern though was getting my 144 beats per minute heartbeat down. At about 7am Tuesday morning they had it down to 95 bpm. They then kicked me out of emerg and admitted me. I went to sleep after a sleepless night and got in a good hour before wake-up breakfast delivery. Later that morning my heartbeat came right back up. Over the next three days it continued to fluctuate back and forth to both extremes. The cellulitis could have been responsible but they had to do a battery of tests to know exactly. At one point a doctor said I was experiencing Atrial Fibrulation (an irregular heart rhythm, known as an arrhythmia, the top half of my heart beating twice as fast as the bottom half.) and could possibly be due to the infection. Over the next two days, visually at least, my leg got worse. It turned into one of the more frightening cellulitis reference photos Id found on the web. So apart from being a large man, wired up to a portable EKG machine and assigned to a tiny, torturous, uncomfortable hospital bed I was being very well taken care of and everyone couldnt have been nicer. THEN THE OTHER SHOE DROPPED. Thursday morning my nurse came in to tell me that the culture from the leg came back and they found MRSA, one of the new fearful Superbugs that have been developing, resisting most antibiotics. (Google superbug and crap yourself!) She explained theyd probably be moving me to my own room (I immediately panicked ISOLATION!!! Noooo!!!) She explained it wasnt a lock-down ward but simply wanted to protect my own roomates (first was another Michael, next was another Michael Robert??? I was flattered they had a room just for us... lol.) who might have lowered immune systems and bacteria can spread so easily. 30 minutes after she told me this I caught one of those ticker-tape news crawls that run across the bottom of CNNs screen. I read SCIENTISTS PREDICT THAT BY 2050, SUPERBUGS WILL KILL MORE OF THE POPULATION THAN CANCER!!! Thanks for the instantaneous projectile diarrhoea CNN!!! An hour later she came in to give me further results. Whewwww The infection is normal cellulitis. They simply had found MRSA bacteria in the culture. Made me feel sliiiiiiightly better. She then explained that Superbugs and thousands of other types of bacteria live on everybodys skin and in our environment all the time. Its just trouble when one of them gets into to our systems. She let me know I was greenlit for release and I was just waiting for paper work and a prescription for oral. I thought... what a great country!!! A PRESCRIPTION FOR ORAL!!! I loved the sound of that! I started wondering whether Homecare Nursing took care of that? Then she said antibiotics. Oral antibiotics!!! Oh well, thats good too I thought. She also informed me my sped up heart was directly related to the infection and I didnt have Atrial Fibrulation. Can I hear a Whewwwwwww! And now I am back in my cool cave with all my systems in place and a queensize bed that loves me. I want to thank, from the bottom of my rapidly beating heart (it has twice as much love to pump out!), Doug Nicholson who went out of his way to get me to the hospital. And to Kevin Kelly, Frank Iacobucci & Kim Ratcliffe who were my back-up drivers all willing to help at the drop-of-a-hat (and Kim lives in Scarborough!). And again to Kevin Kelly who shepherded me home last night despite the biggest snow dump of the year. And thanks to the staff at Mt. Sinai, especially two 72-hour ward, 12th floor nurses who made my stay brighter, Shannon with two ns (Nurse Shanon with one n was much crabbier... seriously) and John.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Dec 2014 19:41:27 +0000
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