Laura Burk Benson

21 Days to Discharge Journal entry by   Laura Benson  —  Nov 21, 2017 The day has finally arrived.  Colin was "discharged" this afternoon.  I have this word in quotes, because technically speaking, Colin lives at the hospital's clinic throughout each day and sleeps in the Wounded Warrior barracks. On Friday, the PICC team was sent to Colon's hospital room, but they refused because his skin was too inflamed and scaling.  Several days of scrubbing him and covering his skin in Vaseline wraps did the trick!  On Monday the PICC line was placed and the dressing was replaced this morning.  Meanwhile, I (Laura) received training and practiced giving my husband antibiotic IV several times. Nurses came for a visit to the barracks to review and train on the use of all of his medical supplies.  (There are several bags and two large boxes of medicine and supplies that were sent with us and also brought to his barracks.) This evening he will ha...

Two Infections Journal entry by  Laura Benson  —  Nov 16, 2017 Each day we hope that things will get better.  His skin condition comes and goes.  I have seen piles of skin fall to the floor in the past week.  They adjust his medicine and then his skin turns a "dusky grey" and then the next day it's red and swollen, begins to crack and then slough off.  Colin tells me that his skin is always painful and terribly itchy. His IV site was moved over the weekend.  The site where the IV had previously been placed was swollen and pus was coming out of it.  We had a very long three day weekend with very little staff and doctor rounds (Veterans Day was observed on Friday).  They have been testing him for infections every morning with blood cultures.  Something came back positive, but was dismissed due to the fact that he sheds so much skin that the sample was contaminated.  Additionally, they did not want to give him any additio...

Additional relapse with more testing and a visit to the NIH Journal entry by   Laura Benson  —  Nov 11, 2017 Colin had been suffering with a worsening rash and has been getting weaker each day.  In addition, his heart is racing and his blood pressure is up.  He has headaches, feels dizzy, confused and nauseated now as well. he continues to press on and attend daily (outpatient) appointments with various departments at Walter Reed.   On October 31, 2017 he repeated his PET Scan, while tapering Cyclosporine - hoping to get better imagines by removing the medication that could possible mask cancer.  Lymphoma needs to be ruled out do to his various skin conditions and a few previous labs had markers. On November 1, 2017 he barely made it to his first appointment and on his way to his next appointment we ran into one of his main doctor that follows him closely.  We were put into his office to review the PET scan that showed lymph node...