His Port is severely infected

Posted by MommaCandy @mommacandy, Sep 10, 2023

Well took friend to local ER on Wed with a severely infected port, so he was admitted and slapped on high power antibiotics.. was transferred last night to UVA and apparently they are removing port today. I'm not there which has left me feeling all weird cause I've been there for everything..he was due for chemo on Tuesday..so I'm assuming that will be postponed...im in a very nervous holding pattern ATM ..any ideas of what to expect from this?

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scolio | @scolio | Sep 11, 2023

No, no idea at all. But your friend is lucky to have you.

gardenlady1116 | @gardenlady1116 | Sep 11, 2023

The infection has to clear up enough to implant a new one without the new one getting infected. Chemo wouldn't be given with an active infection.

MommaCandy | @mommacandy | Sep 12, 2023

They removed the port Sunday afternoon and it's draining something fierce, he had another blood draw for more cultures yesterday. I'm not sure how many more blood draws they can do on him, simply because of all the scar tissue and the fact his hands and arms are so bruised from repeated sticks. Since last Wednesday night when he was admitted through local ER to local hospital he's has been stuck over 60 times for blood draws and IVs that have blown. Upon his arrival at UVA, they actually ran the IV into his bicep area because that's the only place they could get a vein that would hold it and not blow. The one he had when he left local hospital had "solided" up as they called it so it had to be removed.
As of this morning which was 24 hours nothing had started growing so that's a plus but they said it will be 72 hours before they give a definitive "day one" as they want to call it. He will have to be on antibiotics for anywhere from 2 to 8 weeks once they hit that day one. They did another CT scan on his abdomen yesterday and saw a shadow on the liver but no idea what that is, the oncology doctor he saw this morning who is taking over his care while he's in the hospital said that they would most likely be doing an MRI on that probably sometime tomorrow. They have done several other scans including something on the heart valves to make sure that the staph infection has not attached to the heart wall or to the valves. Basically at the moment we are in a hurry up and wait situation so who knows what's next now. His oncologist who's overseeing the chemo has said that once they have the infection cleared they will revisit the whole chemo thing possibly with different drugs or a modification to what he was doing simply because they're trying to stay ahead of this cancer to keep it from spreading. So that's where we are ATM..thank you all for listening and responding it's much appreciated