Hospital Stay

What a crazy, tiring and stressful time it's been lately. Last week, Jaime began complaining of a sore throat and swollen gland on his right side. Neither of us thought much of it. I mean, we've all had those kind of symptoms before, right?! He went to see our family doctor on Friday. At this point, his neck was visibly swollen and he was having a hard time swallowing. She told him that she felt like it was a salivary gland that was infected and prescribed him antibiotics and a follow up appt for Monday. Poor guy....the weekend was completely miserable for him. He was in tremendous pain; so much so, that it would cause him to throw up. We made it to Monday, with no improvement, and the doctor sent him straight to the ER since his symptoms had worsened. Of course, the wait at an ER is long and lots of tests were run. Here is him waiting and a glimpse of his swollen neck:

Finally the tests confirmed it to be exactly what his doctor originally said. The gland was probably blocked by a stone and had no way to drain. He had to be admitted immediately with surgery followed shortly thereafter. They wanted to try 24 hours of IV antibiotics first to see if the swelling could come down some, which would make surgery easier. They put him on the intermediate care unit (just a step down from ICU) because there was a small concern that if swelling continued, it would block off his airway. The next 24 hours was hard on everyone. He continued to hurt and the antibiotics didnt help. He ended up having surgery the next night because the doctors didnt want to risk waiting any longer. At the end of his surgery, I got the report that Jaime was doing well but they were not able to remove the entire gland yet. Things were just too swollen and the infection was a mess. They placed a drain in his neck, which is still there, and they've been treating him since surgery with antibiotics and saline rinses for the drain. 

The kids were not able to see him for a few days, but finally got to meet up with him in the skywalk area to visit (they were not allowed to see him in his original room). When he got moved to a regular room, they got to see him again. Jaime is suppose to leave the hospital today, drain still in place, and we will treat it at home until tomorrow. Then we'll head to the surgeons office for them to remove it and schedule his final surgery for about 2 weeks from now. We are ready to have this all over and Jaime completely healed. Our family and friends have been so good to us this week and really stepped up to help us out when we needed it the most. Thank you to everyone! Please continue to pray for this healing process over the next few weeks! We are ready for a sense of normalcy again!