Wonderful Neighbors

A couple weeks ago I asked our son and daughter-in-law where the best place was to get halibut and chips in the local area. They looked at each other and responded, "we don't know" so they asked the neighbors who responded, "at our house." End result, we got to enjoy a wonderful evening at the neighbors celebrating our son's birthday with halibut and chips!

It was made easier by the fiberglass LP tank that I'd removed from the trailer since his other tanks were empty.

Here's a picture of the finished product but I don't have any pictures of us eating. We were all too busy - eating.

Truth in advertising - we also had dinner there the night before - superb bison meatloaf!

This weekend, two of them worked on their open-water certification with our son as their dive instructor. Great neighbors, great teamwork.

What Now?

It was an interesting conversation with the Vet yesterday - not necessarily good, but interesting.

They aren't positive what is causing the drainage from the center of his incision. It seems most likely that this infection is a reaction to the suture material used internally. The specialist cautioned us "that drainage may persist or recur until all suture material is removed or absorbed. That may take many months." That depends on if the infection is a reaction to the absorbable material used to suture the lung and chest cavity or the permanent material used to suture the ribs. If the latter, he could need yet another major surgery 6 months from now to remove those sutures once the remaining ribs have completely healed.

Meanwhile, they want to keep the incision open until it stops draining. Turk is now on his fourth course (and fourth type) of antibiotic, this time for 3-4 weeks.

Right now, the earliest we could leave the Anchorage area would be August 10th which would still allow us to make family commitments in Wenatchee later in August, but cuts out nearly all sight seeing. One day at a time!

Stitches Are Out, But ...

We're please that Turk seems to be making progress with his internal healing. Temps are normal, he wants to be more active than the Doctor wants him to be, and he's now sleeping occasionally on the side with the incision and missing ribs. All good news.

We were supposed to get the stitches out of the incision from his second surgery on Tuesday but ended up taking him back to the Vet on Sunday when his incision started to weep and open within a day of coming off antibiotics. That vet said to leave the stitches in for another week and put him onto a new course of a different antibiotic, but the center of the incision continued to deteriorate. She also recommended onesies to try to keep a bandage in place.

Yesterday we went back to the hospital where they have reevaluated his incision. They decided that there is subcutaneous infection below the area in the center of his incision that has reopened and they've scheduled him to meet with the thoracic specialist tomorrow just in case the infection is coming from the chest cavity. Meanwhile, they have removed all of the stitches from his second surgery.

Given the issues we've experienced with his healing, we're not willing to leave town until all the stitches are out and the incision is healed. Originally, we expected to leave on tomorrow which then slipped to the 9th which could become the 19th or so depending on what they do with him tomorrow. Slow going, but we did get some salmon smoked last night.