I came off my antibiotics at midnight on 30th Dec, but only lasted 2 1/2 days before the infection flared up again and I had to re-admit myself to the Golden Jubilee Hosp with Rigors and a temperature of 40. Intravenous applications of 2 different antibiotics for 5 hours a day quietened the bugs sufficiently for me to go to theatre on the 8th where they conducted some open heart surgery to remove the two remaining pacemaker wires with attached clumps of infection and do some repair work to an iffy heart valve. I had a wee shot on the heart lung machine in theatre and a ventilator in ICU with a day in HDU before getting back to my ward and continuing with the IV regime.
I got home this afternoon with oral antibiotics for the next 4 weeks, and we'll need to see what happens after that. I'll need to negotiate getting another pacemaker once I'm declared free of infection. They're talking 3 months before I can get back to light work, and another one before I can do my normal 'humping' of big flight cases, lights, etc. I've got an impressive 250mm vertical scar up the front of my breastbone so I'll need to remove the modelling from my CV!
Ash
BTW - I like this new phpBB3 format, but haven't tried any of the new toys yet. Anyone know if it spell checks?
