By Lisa Ansay —
Taylor was scheduled for his long-awaited facial reconstruction surgery back on November 15th. The week prior, he came down with a pretty serious sinus infection, so the surgery was postponed until he was cleared. He kicked that infection, but contracted another completely different strain of infection which required an altogether different course of antibiotics. The various antibiotics caused an infectious issue in the gut, so he has been battling that for the past three-or-so weeks now.
Taylor’s team watches him very closely (and collaboratively) as there is always concern for infection migrating to the brain.
The week before Christmas, Taylor was not feeling well at all, and did not even want to do his physical therapies, which is very unusual. He also started spiking fevers so his doctors wanted him in ER immediately for comprehensive testing. They performed a head CT, pulled blood cultures, chest x-rays, doppler scans to look for clots (which can cause fever), lumbar puncture and others to identify possible sources of fever.
All good news! The head CT showed the issues of previous concern had showed marked improvement. The blood cultures, chest x-ray, doppler scan and others were all negative. The lumbar puncture was the very scary test, and there were no signs of infection in his cerebral spinal fluid – at all! Whew.
The dose of antibiotics for his stomach was increased, and he is feeling better.
The conclusion: 1) The infection in the gut was rearing up; or 2) the grafted tissue from his leg/hip used to cushion/enclose the brain is breaking down as expected, which can cause fever; or 3) the brain injury will cause random body temperatures, perhaps for the rest of his life. Any or all of these could be at play.
Overall, Taylor is doing very very well. His speech has improved markedly over the past few months. His physical stamina is very strong, often opting for several rounds of PT in a day including weights, etc. He has put on a total of 40 pounds since he was in Barrow ICU, and that’s without eating real food! Look out world when he can chew and eat again! He can really pack it in!
He is very looking forward to steak. That’s pretty much all he talks about wanting to eat – what he misses most. Steak.
And it’s just around the corner….:0)
Surgeons are evaluating now for reschedule of the reconstruction. You all will be the second to know!
Much Love and Happy New Year!
P.S. Taylor will be pulling together the next entry.
