Success for husband

We did actually get to see husband's consultant yesterday, nice man, if a bit abrupt (aren't they all?).  He confirmed husband's wee sample shows yet another infection....or rather, a continuation of the ongoing infection.  He doesn't think the antibacterial medication our GP put husband on instead of the antibiotics is doing any good at all, and said he may as well stop taking it.  He also thinks the prostate-shrinking med husband has been taking for 4 months has probably done all it's going to do, he said it would have worked by now if it was going to work at all.

I asked the consultant if the fact that the GP keeps giving husband only short courses of antibiotics (he's had about 7 or 8 so far), with a break in between courses, and then stopping them altogether, has contributed to husband having ongoing UTIs - the infection never gets controlled or eradicated.  He said Yes, exactly that.  But....he also thinks that antibiotic use is far too prevalent nowadays and resistance to them will soon be a massive problem, so it's a bit of a Catch 22 situation.  

He thinks husband's ongoing problems can be cured, hopefully, with an operation on his prostate.  He needs to do a particular test first, something to do with finding out where and how big the blockage in the prostate is, and he can't do this test whilst husband still has an infection, it will distort the results, apparently.  So he's recommending to the GP that husband has a 7 day course of a targeted strong antibiotic, followed by a wee test, and then another 7 day course and another wee test.  But, and this is a crucial bit, he's to take a low dose maintenance course of antibiotic in between the strong 7 day courses.  He's hoping that this approach will get on top of the infection properly.  At last, a positive response after all these months of waiting!  We're happy that an end may be in sight, it's taken long enough.

I was up just after 2 this morning, in total agony again.  I'd not eaten much at all yesterday, so it wasn't any food disagreeing with me.  Took some painkillers, which did take the edge off the gut pain, so I went back to bed after about half an hour.  Woke up again a couple of times feeling sick, but went back to sleep quite quickly each time....and finally woke up at 06.40 am.  That's virtually unheard of for me, I can't even remember the last time I got up that late.  Despite having far more sleep than usual though, I still feel totally knackered, as if I haven't had any sleep at all for days.

I'm in the throes of making a Halloween card, various ideas popping into my head as I'm doing it so it's kind of evolving as I go along.  I'll show it on my cardmaking blog when it's done.