An Update

So Joey survived his surgery and we found out that along with still having meningitis, he has a staph infection. Not MRSA, which is the really bad, sometimes fatal, antibiotic resistant kind. They put him on antibiotics for 4 weeks, to begin with, and possibly another 2 weeks following that. In order for him to come home, they put in a pic (sp.?) line, which is a type of permanent IV. Twice a day we flush it out, inject the antibiotics, and put heparin in it so it doesn't clot up. There aren't any needles involved, which is good for him as I doubt he wants me coming near him with a needle. A nurse visits once a week to check the IV and make sure he's doing okay.

Yesterday he started the day with a visit to the infectious disease doctor for a checkup and to get the results on some bloodwork. Apparently his liver function test came back a little off so the doctor ordered an ultrasound to check it. If the ultrasound comes back okay, he'll stay on the antibiotics an additional 2 weeks when the initial 4 weeks are up. If not, he'll be done with the antibiotics and the 4 week period. He had the ultrasound today and we'll hopefully get the results tomorrow.

Yesterday afternoon following his dr. appointment, Joey looked out the window and noticed the police walking around the house behind us. He went and spoke to them and found out the man who lives there (alone) had not shown up to work that day so they were checking things out. Eventually, they had to break the glass out of the front door to get in. They found him in his bed deceased. We speculate (or maybe the police did) that it's suicide. Joey found out that he had been transferred to Charlotte from California for his job, and then been laid off in August. He had now found out that his current job was going to lay him off. I don't know if that's the reason or the actual cause of death, but it is very sad. We didn't know him well, but enough to say hi.

After that excitement, the nurse came for her weekly checkup and found Joey's blood pressure was high. They agreed that it was probably from the situtation with the neighbor and the amount of pain he's been in (it's been really, really bad lately) and decided to monitor it for a few days to see how it did. Last night it was a little better, so we'll see how that goes.

Through all of this, my mother in law has been staying with us. She's been a huge help with the kids and Joey and has made it possible for me to stay late at work the past few weeks, which is awesome since it's tax season. She's taken over dinner preparation, which I am especially grateful for since it's once of those things I hate. However, she's also taken over as the sweet maker, and I'm pretty sure I've gained 10 pounds while she's been here. Joey has a checkup with the neuro doctor on Thursday that she's going to take him to, and then maybe we'll let her leave, although I'm sure we'll all be sad to see her go.