Thanks for your concern. I just put him to bed and looked at his red streak, its the top of a humongous black and blue, so the lower part is black and blue and the upper part is red. I think he’ll be OK til the nurse comes. His incision has been covered since Monday when they did the surgery. If she doesn’t look at it tomorrow I will make her. The heat in the knee is a new development today, and I’ve been there myself.
Please reconsider taking him to the ER.
Please at least keep checking it, mark where it is now with a pen and if it starts moving he should not wait to be seen. Red leaving the area of a wound, whether it looks like streaks or a sunburn is a sign of blood poisoning and if it is BP it will move fast.
You have provided a clear description of a post-surgical infection. You are apparently assuming that your husband's immune system will keep it in check until the nurse looks at him and he can get back into the hospital tomorrow. It is a very risky assumption. What if you are wrong? With infections, time is critical. If he goes into the hospital now he can receive antibiotics immediately.
Please read this description of sepsis:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sepsis
I hope you make the right decision.
With all due respect, not knowing your situation entirely: why you think he will be ok until morning when he has those symptoms?
It doesn’t matter that his incision has been covered. A lot happens in just a few hours. Better to take him in now — insist on it! — and be safe rather than sorry. Check the instruction sheet he was sent home with.
Excuse the bluntness; it is out of concern knowing how serious this can be. Best to you both. Our prayers and thoughts are with you.
I had a PICC line earlier this year - due to a lot of health issues.
My nurse had just been out about twelve hours earlier to do a dressing change, etc. when I noticed that it was very red around the insertion site and hurt a bit as I went to hook up my meds. I waited about half an hour and looked at it in better light and could see the red spreading.
I called the on-call number (late on a weekend) and they sent someone out immediately. And from there had to get someone to my house immediately to take me to the hospital.
I ended up losing the PICC line, being in the hospital for over a week, and all sorts of other complications I’m still dealing with months later.
They said had I not noticed it - and done something about it - and gotten in to the hospital as quickly as I did it’d have been even worse. And that’s with the infection not having gotten throughout my blood stream or anything. It was relatively localized to the site.
And that’s with it having been fine less than 12 hours earlier...the nurse having checked it as she did the dressing change, plus labs having been run, etc.
I join the others in saying I’d REALLY not wait until the morning.
If you’re really not wanting to go in tonight, can you at least insist on call comes out tonight and look at it?
Like I said, I had no signs of any infection just hours earlier. And even the four hours it took (from when I noticed it, waited the half hour to re-check, called on call, got the nurse out there, got a ride to the hospital, was seen in ER - having the nursing company phone ahead and telling them what was happening so I didn’t have to wait there) before antibiotics were able to be started it was evident how it was progressing.
Trust me, potentially experiencing the fallout I’m dealing with all these months later, despite having acted immediately, is SO not worth it. So much better to be safe (albeit inconvenienced having to go in) than sorry.
Praying things don’t get worse and they can do something to help your DH and treat anything that might be needed to!
He needs HBOT now, not later.