Eddie’s status: Still in the hospital with pneumonia.
Despite the heavy regimen of Vancomyacin and Zosyn for the past 5 days, looks like the pneumonia is not backing down. Eddie continues to spike a fever, requiring him to take Tylenol around the clock to keep his temperature in check. Also, the excruciating pain in his chest area came back with a vengeance last night. Needless to say, the past 24 hours have been quite a doozy for Eddie.
Based on images from CT scans of his chest and abdominal area, the doctors believe that there is an abscess in his right lung, likely caused by a bacterial infection. The exact nature of the marks they see on his chest images is still being determined, but that’s their current theory.
The way I understand it is there’s a piñata full of debris and fluid positioned somewhere near the border between his lung and diaphragm, causing Eddie a lot of pain whenever he inhales or exhales– oh, you know, just whenever he breathes. No biggie.
While the doctors work on getting to the bottom of Eddie’s pneumonia conundrum, they’ve impressed on us the importance of Eddie taking deep breaths. These deep breaths open up his chest and can help clear out some of the gunk that’s built up.
I know what you’re thinking, wait, what? But, it hurts when he breathes!
You’re right. It hurts a lot. Eddie describes the pain akin to being stabbed with a knife.
In order to help Eddie cope with the pain, the doctors set him up with a PCA, a patient-controlled analgesia pump that dispenses a potent narcotic pain med called dilaudid. At the push of a button, Eddie can dispense a small dose of the dilaudid to help him immediately counter his pain symptoms.
I know the thought of a patient being in control of a strong narcotic sounds iffy, but the PCA has been extremely helpful as it allows him to receive the pain relief when he needs it as opposed to waiting hours between each full dose.
Eddie and his entourage of drugs, including the PCA filled with dilaudid
In addition to pain management, the doctors have tasked Eddie with exercising his lungs through a device called an Incentive Spirometer. He has to keep the yellow cup afloat for as long as he can on a single inhale.
Eddie reached a personal best of five seconds!
The meds and exercises will hopefully help clear out some of the debris and liquid in his lungs, but Eddie’s team of hematology/oncology doctors still need to figure out more about the culprit behind his pneumonia. Is it bacterial? Fungal? Maybe something not yet discussed?
Tomorrow he’ll be examined by the pulmonary (lung) doctors and undergo a bronchoscopy where they will stick a scope down his trachea and grab some sputum sample from his lungs. The hope is that the sputum cultures will provide more empirical data on the specific nature of Eddie’s pneumonia.
As for the bone marrow transplant, all plans are on hold until they take care of Eddie’s pneumonia. Or, at least, that’s what we’re assuming. We haven’t really heard from the transplant team.
Pneumonia is an unfortunate setback, but Eddie is holding strong. Once he takes down the pneumonia, he’ll get back to fighting his Aplastic Anemia.
Take that, pneumonia!