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Friday morning, I wake up with my knee hurting pretty badly. It was a similar pain to the pain I woke up and put up with constantly during the winter. It seemed weird, but I didn’t think much of it. My mom noticed me limping and asked what was wrong. I told her it was no big deal and not to worry about it. Naturally, she made it a big deal and was worried. She noticed it was hot, which is a wonderful sign of infection. She called Lori at Moffitt and Lori was even more worried and told us to get in there ASAP.

I get to Moffitt, thinking I was going to be there for a half hour or so. I jumped up on the table for the doctor to have a look. The whole surgery site was now hot AND pink. Wonderful.

The problem ends up being a huge list of possible infections, causing a couple of days of 103 degree fevers. I’m still not sure what kind of infection it was. All I know is, it kept me at Moffitt for the next eight days. I end up sitting in Moffitt’s emergency room deal all day until about 7pm. I guess that Friday was a busy day in C world. The room I ended up getting wasn’t nearly as classy as the first time around, but still.. you know.. *nice*.

I spent a few days on antibiotics not knowing the cause of this disaster and not knowing how long I would be in the joint. On Tuesday, I get some news that I’ll be getting another dose of surgery to clean up this devil in my leg. I was excited! Not only that, I have to get, what’s called, a PICC line in me to administor the drugs. It’s a tube that was put in a vein that starts in the under side of my bicep and works its merry way up my arm to the top side of my heart. The next twenty minutes I spent crying while they put it in was another memorable moment of my stay. Anyway, they used the same incision line from my first surgery, so I don’t get to wear any new scars. I was hoping for a cross, an arrow shape or something when this was all said and done.

I met quite a few good people this time and was coherent long enough to hold a real conversion with them. I was so drugged up the last time that I don’t remember being able to talk for more than a couple minutes. ALL of the nurses were awesome, but there was definitely something special about a few of them.

A few good friends made the trek to north Tampa to come visit. It was good to see familiar faces and it passed the time better than soap operas and sports highlights. There was one face I was begging to see, but her lifestyle was probably more important.

For the next six weeks or so, I have the PICC line in me for the in-home antibiotics. Talk about a HUGE pain in the ass! Oh well, life goes on.