Midline Dressing, IV Bags

March 9, 2024, at home

PHOTO: new dressing on my midline today; two bags of morning intravenous infusions

This morning, my home nurse changed the dressing on my midline in my right upper arm. I am using a midline instead of a longer PICC line this time.

I am still in the midst of a six-week-long daily regimen of intravenous antibiotics infusions three times per day (twice in the morning; once in the evening) that started at the hospital on February 9, 2024, continued when I arrived at home eight days later, and is still continuing.

I entered the hospital on February 9, 2024, with shortness of breath and a painful, swollen right ankle. I was diagnosed with osteomyelitis (a bone infection) in my right, fractured ankle, and cellulitis (infection under the skin) in the surrounding area. The pain and swelling have since mostly abated, but I still have some time left to heal.

My home nurse starts me on my two simultaneously administered infusions every morning. My wonderful wife unhooks me after the two bags have slowly finished. Around 8 p.m. every evening, she administers the third bag, which is the same as the milder antibiotics from the morning. Thankfully, I am almost done. I may have to take an antibiotics pill every day for the rest of my life to prevent recurring infections. 

In the hospital, doctors discovered that I have a six-inch-long, hair-thin wire embedded in a blood vessel between my heart and one of my lungs, but that's a different story. It is either a broken part of a previous PICC line or a guide wire for a PICC line. Because the fragment is embedded, the doctors decided to leave it there. My body has covered it, so it is not the cause of my recurring infections.