to Paget re infections

[Guest guest]

Paget,

I hope it is better to be late than never. I just read your post

about the infection and the pain.

I wanted to say that I have been going through the same thing right

now and I totally understand. I had a PICC line since beginning of

November because I couldn't eat and was put on TPN. Two weeks ago, I

got a gram negative infection from the PICC. I was septic. Was

hospitalized and put on heavy duty antibiotics. Stayed in the

hospital for 5 days. Caught a bowel bug when I was in the hospital

and was put on more antibiotics on topc of that. I now have a

Hickman. And, of course, you know what happens when you are on all of

the antibiotics, more infections in other areas. Things are starting

to settle down now. But I can tell you, I went in the bathroom in the

hospital and cried and cried out of frustration.

One thing please try to remember. Infections can be life threatening

when you are being fed intravenously. At the first sign of fever, you

should get yourself to the emergency room. Sepsis is nasty. You need

to respond quickly and so does the hospital. It can quickly fall

apart if you do not receive prompt attention. The other thing I

learned is that a temperature may be different for different people.

For example, I tend to have a low body temperature 97 - 98. A fever

for me might be 99. Whereas, someone who have a normal body

temperature 98.6, it might not be a big deal. My temperature when I

woke up with shaking chills from the infection was 102. So for me,

that was extremely high.

One of the things you might want to check with your doctor is this.

They recommended and gave me the flu vaccine and pneumonia vaccine as

protection and because of the hickman. You might want to ask about it

if you have not already done so.

Take care,

Pat