Today's Medical Update

September 7, 2023: Today's Medical Update:

1. I have a new 33-inch-long PICC line in my left shoulder (photo below). It goes through the veins in my left chest nearest my heart to continue my six-week-long regimen of daily intravenous antibiotic. My previous four-inch-long midline, which had to be replaced anyway, was leaking due to a blood clot.

2. My echocardiogram result showed NO infection in my heart.

3. This afternoon, a physician's assistant removed the "closed wound suction evacuator" (draining tube and device) from the wound in my lower spine.

4. I continued my daily physical and occupational therapies in my hospital room following my surgery on September 2, 2023, to remove (clean out) an infection (an abscess) in a disk in my lower spine and osteomyelitis (bone infection) in the surrounding bone.

I was already in the midst of the regimen of daily intravenous antibiotic infusions for a blood infection and possible osteomyelitis within a fracture in my right Tibia. My right Fibula is also fractured. I fractured both bones of my right ankle due to two falls in April 2023. The daily intravenous antibiotic will also treat the osteomyelitis within the spinal bone surrounding my disk and treat any remaining infection within the disk.