Poor Jan is in hospital. She has an infection in the arm she broke ages ago. She had an operation to remove the metal and pins in the arm six months ago, and now this problem has flared up at the surgery site.
She had a very high temperature and felt bad – so she thought she had a cold. Then the arm started swelling and got very hot so she went and saw her doctor who packed her off to Concord Hospital on Monday afternoon.
They’ve been filling her full of antibiotics – vancomycin and flucloxacillin intravenously. But then the skin redness showing the infection site spread beyond the area they’d marked on her arm when she came in (see pic) and they decided they had to cut into the arm and clean it out. She’s in good spirits and wanted to show the world her arm situation!
She was taken to surgery this evening and now (Wednesday 8pm) she’s still not back on the ward.
After recovering from the surgery, they say she’ll have to stay in probably till next Monday to have more intravenous antibiotics. The doctor who briefed me said the infection was caused by staphylococcus aureus (golden staph). But they didn’t think it was a particularly antibiotic resistant one.
Fingers crossed!
