![\"David](\"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/08\/david-clay-with-catheter-in-his-chest-a-computerized-iv-pump-delivered-antibiotics-every-8-hours.JPG\" "\\"David")
What a way to start summer, and this blog!<\/p>\nWhat a way to start summer, and this blog!<\/p>\n
As you may have read in Dave\u2019s blog, we had a very close call with my son, David, 16, the 3rd of July. What started out as an innocent \u201cMy throat\u2019s a little sore this morning. I must have snored\u201d as he woke up and \u201cGee my knuckle\u2019s sore and kinda swollen up. I must have smacked the wall while I was asleep.\u201d turned out to be a life-threatening bout with a type A strep, infamously known as the Flesh Eating Bacteria. I\u2019d never heard of strep causing anything but a sore throat. I\u2019m much smarter now.<\/p>\n
After David was driven to the emergency room the night of the 3rd by his brother Bill and his wife, Kelly, the doctors thought he\u2019d gotten an insect bite or poked his knuckle with something and he had gotten an infection from it. His hand was then swollen up, nearly ![\"37](\"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/08\/37-staples-and-14-stitches.thumbnail.JPG\" "\\"37")
half again the size of normal. They kept him in Cloquet and I drove down the next morning. And I was alarmed because the hand was then nearly twice as big as normal and he looked sick, sick. Even with the IV antibiotics, he was running a fever and wouldn\u2019t eat. That\u2019s NOT David.<\/p>\n
But that night he called me on his cell phone (allowed by the nursing staff) and we \u201cwatched\u201d the Fourth of July fireworks from his hospital room together. He sounded better.<\/p>\n
I drove down the next morning, hoping he was much better. Instead, I was met by his youth director from church, who had driven down to see him. He told me David\u2019s arm was starting to swell badly and there was a red streak going up his arm. Right behind Jim was Dr. Rogers, telling me he\u2019d called the infectious disease specialist in St. Lukes Hospital in Duluth and she had him do a CT scan of the hand and arm and then told me she wanted David up there NOW for surgery. Whereupon he told me about Flesh Eating Bacteria. They can move from the throat, in the bloodstream, and lodge in another part of the body and cause a severe infection. They produce a toxin and it starts breaking down the muscle. He said they hoped to save David\u2019s arm and that this was very serious\u2026.it could kill him.<\/p>\n
So, terrified, I followed the ambulance to Duluth, some 17 miles north. I was so upset that I drove into the parking ramp of St. Mary\u2019s Hospital. Oops! Wrong saint! Then I almost passed out in the emergency room of St. Lukes, when the surgeon again repeated the diagnosis and said he hoped they could remove the bacteria by radical surgery and irrigation, followed by intensive, lengthy antibiotic therapy.<\/p>\n
After losing my husband, Bob, to a brain hemorrhage two and a half years ago, then battling cancer myself and losing Dad last year, this was oh so scary for me.<\/p>\n
But, we were fortunate. The surgery was successful and today David is back haying for the neighbor, carrying a shoulder bag with a computerized IV pump which delivers a dose of antibiotics via a catheter into his chest every 8 hours. His 37 staples and 14 stitches were removed a week ago and his arm is looking terrific. He\u2019ll always have the scar to remind us of how close we came. And tomorrow he will get the IV pulled out. (He asked the doctor if he could pull it out! Creeps me out!)<\/p>\n
Through this all, we gave thanks it went well, knowing the possibilities.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, I\u2019m still caring for Mom, 91, who is in a wheelchair, and trying to keep the homestead up and running. The garden this year looks terrific, with sweet corn higher than my head and just starting to tassel out. It\u2019s been a hot summer and the garden loves it.<\/p>\n
The blueberries around here didn\u2019t amount to anything; the last late frost nipped the flowers. But the pin cherries are terrific. David and I picked two buckets and I made some awfully good jelly from them. I just use the recipe on the Sure Jel directions for sour cherry jelly. It works great. There\u2019s lots more; the trees are bending down with their loads. I just hope the cedar waxwings don\u2019t find them. They\u2019ll fly in, in a big flock and totally pick a small tree clean in an afternoon. It seems like I\u2019m always going mano a mano with nature! But that\u2019s how life is out here in the backwoods.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What a way to start summer, and this blog! As you may have read in Dave\u2019s blog, we had a very close call with my son, David, 16, the 3rd of July. What started out as an innocent \u201cMy throat\u2019s a little sore this morning. I must have snored\u201d as he woke up and \u201cGee […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/JackieClay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}