Friday, June 04, 2010

Psalm 38

So, it's 2:30 in the morning, and my mother just called me.

My brother is in the hospital with sepsis, and secondary acute peritonitis.

He's apparently been infected and swelling for at least five days, and refused to go to the hospital until the discoloration had spread across most of his torso, the swelling had immobilized his hip and thigh, and radically distended his abdomen (my mother said it looked like a basketball in both size and color), and he developed respiratory difficulty.

The infection originated in the lesions in his thigh and hip (I mentioned them a few months ago. He's needed surgery for a while, they're cancerous, but he refused treatment), and spread down, and up, from there apparently.

There may be necrosis in the lesions, or the tissues surrounding them, which could mean amputation, or significant muscle excision... maybe muscle death.

Having a major infection go untreated that long, and get that bad... There's a very good chance he's going to die (20-40%); though they aren't calling it "severe" sepsis, or "septic shock".

He's on what they're calling a shock dosage of multiple antibiotics, and they're draining the immediately accessible areas. They say he's going to need at least 24 hours of that in the ICU, presuming the infection is responsive to the antibiotics, before they can go in, drain things deeper, and go after infected tissue causing the underlying infection.

That idiot... Though frankly, it may just be another way of committing suicide without having to do the job himself....

Oh, and we heard today that the idiot who hit my father in law doesn't have insurance. It was initially believed that she did, but apparently it had been canceled. Oh, and he's refusing a lawyer...

Second Timothy, Chapter 2...

Update: He's Ok. Stable, and the infection seems to be under control after giving him the same treatment they give for MRSA (a three way IV antibiotic cocktail). They're going in for surgery probably tomorrow. They figure he'll be in the hospital for another 4-5 days.