Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope, prayers and encouragement. Thank you for visiting.
Chuck has spent the last week in the hospital after going to the ER with back pain that left him too uncomfortable to sit, stand or find any position to ease the pain. He had back surgery in June and felt immediate relief from the pinched nerves and ruptured disc. Unfortunately, an infection set in on the surface at the incision site. He developed pain at his waist which intensified for the next 2 months.
August 25 he was admitted to the ER. They discovered via MRI that he had the same bacterial infection in the bone of his spine and muscle surrounding L1 to L5 as the surface infection. They have been able to identify the bacterial infection as pseudomonas and are treating it with IV infusions that it is responding to positively. Unfortunately, the infection has created an abscess in his psoas muscle that stretches from the back to the hip which is causing weakness and lack of mobility in his right leg. Based on this, and spiking a fever, they took him in for a 2nd back surgery on Saturday September 1st. His back was unstable before this and small motions caused intense pain making it impossible to eat or move much. They put screws and a rod from L1-L5 and from that point on his pain has significantly reduced. He is now able to sit up to eat and is working 3 times a day with PT. The antibiotics seem to be working but he will be on a long term infusion plan for another 7 weeks.
He is on two types of antibiotics currently given 5 times a day. In addition C. Difficile has decided to take advantage of the environment and is currently wrecking havoc to his system. We are under isolation protocol at the hospital and this is causing issues with future transition plans.
We are very thankful to his team of Drs and Nurses at Sequoia that are taking such good care of all of us and particularly Chuck. We have made many friends here and they have helped us all navigate through this intense process.
The current plan is to move him to an intensive therapy program in the area where he can work on getting stronger and being able to return to the Sequoias when he has built up some of his strength. We hope to hear that he can be transferred the week of 9/10. It has reminded us all of being admitted to college, where we have the target we want and are also being sought out and marketed to by other facilities.
We appreciate all the well wishes and cards he has received. We spend a lot of time at the hospital and so it is difficult to respond to all messages individually. We appreciate people checking this forum and we will continue to provide updates on this site as Chuck continues back on his road to hiking once again!
Please feel free to leave notes for us below. This site will primarily be maintained by Anne with Chuck and Ginny as guest authors as they have more time down the road.
