After Jace came home from the hospital he was very fussy and not sleeping well at night. This was not like him at all. We just figured it was because he was still recovering from his surgery.
On Thursday, July 9, Jace saw Dr. Bichell for a check up. He seemed to think the fussiness was probably just from recovery. On Sunday, I began to notice there was a tiny spot that looked like a bubble forming on his incision. It looked alot like it did from the last surgery so I didn't think too much of it.
On Tuesday, July 14, Jace saw Dr. Hansford for a follow up appointment. That morning the bubble on his incision was beginning to grow. When Dr. Hansford saw it she immediately called Dr. Bichell. He told us to come to the hospital emergency room and they would contact him when we arrived. He said to come prepared to stay a few days. Little did we know that those few days would turn into three weeks.
We arrived at the emergency room about 6 p.m. The doctors were sure it was some type of infection and immediately started him on antibiotics. Around midnight we were finally moved to the 6th floor. We were back in the same room we had just left a few weeks earlier.
The next day Dr. Bichell lanced the spot on Jace's incision to let the infection drain. They later placed a wound vac on the incision to help suck out the infection. The infectious disease doctors were in daily to check on him. They could not tell us for sure what type of infection it was because nothing was growing on the culture. They just assumed it was probably some type of staff. They inserted a PICC line and began treating him with antibiotics through it.
The wound vac helped but Dr. Bichell was still not pleased with the way the incision looked. On July 24, they took Jace back to surgery to reopen his wound and clean it out good. They also replaced the wires around the sternum. Dr. Bichell said this way he would know that the infection was cleaned out. This would also mean 6 more weeks before we could pick Jace up under his arms. He said they would watch Jace for 2 or 3 days and if he had no fever we could go home.
On Sunday, we were told we would probably be going home the next day. Then Jace's incision started to drain. They told us as long as it was draining we would not be allowed to go home. So began the long wait for the drainage to stop.
After 3 weeks, we were finally released from the hospital on August 5, the first day of school. Jace had to go home with his PICC line and we would have to give him antibiotics 3 times a day through the line. They trained us on how to give them. It was very stressful because everything had to be so sterile. They told us any germ that touched his port would end up in his blood stream. We did survive it though.
