Ah, that would explain the funny noises and the faint blue glow coming from the compost pile …
This.
PIC line moved to the other arm today. Head doc said offhand that he hopes this is the last one (meaning, once it would be time to re-switch, Shoe would be off so many of his meds that they can just scrap the PIC.) Here’s hopin’ …
His dad and I actually stayed in the room with him while a **very **tall drink of water did the new PIC installation. I was surprised at how relatively smoothly and, mostly, blood-spatter-free the whole procedure went (considering!) although his dad was at the foot of the bed and was staring closely and I was on the other side out of the line of sight, and also I very quickly turned my head away each time I saw
the tall drink of water (a.k.a. PIC Nurse) pick up what looked like coiled-up wires the length of my ARM. Now, I know cognitively that a PIC runs aaa-haaaa-haaaalllll the way up the arm, around the collarbone, and then down back into the chest, so rationally it would need to be that long, but DA-YUM!
Oh! His knee doesn’t hurt as much today, and isn’t warm or swollen anymore, so the ice pack helped with the inflammation and/or whatever went all hinkey** with this immune system right there got sorta smoothed back out.
** This is, I believe, the technical term.
His hair is getting thin. I wasn’t going to say nuthin’ but he pointed it out to me today with a sad face. 
There’s loose hairs all over his pillow case and when he brought it up he reached up and pulled several more strands loose from his scalp with ease. I told him a) your poor body has been under a lot of stress so of course you’re shedding, and b) I’d love you without any hair.
Someone, anyone: is this temporary? Common? I’ve heard of the “chemo curl,” and I assume if he was on an antibiotic load enough that they were worried about his kidneys that his overall systems must be enduring quite a toll.
Hurray for more good news! Out of the ICU, and now the Doctor thinks that TOS might not need the PIC line soon. Happy dance commences 
Bumping flatlined off the bottom.
StG
When I was sick enough to be in the hospital in 2005 - which was nowhere near as sick as your fella - a lot of my hair fell out. Fortunately it fell out more or less evenly so it wasn’t TOO noticeable in my case but yes, severe illness or stress can lead to hair loss. Usually it comes back when you get better. Mine did. Same color even (sometime it comes back grey).
Really now - do you want his body spending energy on getting better, or growing hair? Priorities, you know?
Yes, heavy use of antibiotics (and yes, his qualifies as “heavy!”) can cause hair thinning or hair loss. It may continue for 3-4 months after they stop the antibiotics, because it’s affecting the hair follicles, and some of them are dormant right now. Not to worry, it will grow back eventually. (Unless, of course, this is coincidentally the time when he’s genetically beginning to thin anyway…but maybe don’t tell him that right now. Men don’t tend to take male pattern balding well even when they are healthy.)
So, shave it, or buzz cut it. When I worked with bone marrow transplants, we shaved them, proactively. Hair, even clean hair, is loaded with bacteria. Having it all over the bed and on everything he touches is icky*.
You can get clippers for about $20 at the drug store. just buzz cut it and if he’s still finding Li’l tiny hairs** all over then get a new razor and shave it.
You’ll probably have to get permission from the nurse for that, since she’ll have to clean up the bed after.
If you do shave it, I have a few tips. (I shave my husband’s head 3 times a week.)
*Now, that’s a medical term.
** from an old Bill Cosby bit.
And also remember that we *all *lose 50-100 hairs a day. Just, most of the time, we shed them all over, and catch lots in our hairbrushes. Since he’s not walking around shedding them on the floor, in the shower, in the soup…you’re going to notice them more on his pillow than you would in regular life.
GETTING BETTER! GETTING BETTER! Want him home, cue-ball bald and chair-bound if he has to be, but HOME! WANT!
I don’t much care, but he’s a bit worried about it. (And I think he could pull off an Anderson Cooper-style silver grey just fine!) It is falling out evenly, like you said yours did, not in anything approaching sudden male-pattern baldness or anything. Really, I figured at first it was being rubbed off onto the pillow because the sides/back of his head aren’t ever really off the pillowcase. I noticed it long before he said anything about it, but chalked it up to physical stress and kept quiet.
I know, WhyNot, but it’s what’s (left) on his scalp that really is thinning. And his trimmer is already bedside, picunurse, for his beard, so that’s covered. So to speak.
It made me grin. I bet most of us beyond a certain age recognized it instantly.
Thank you, broomstick and WhyNot. I poked around a bit after reading your posts and, why, yes, according to teh intertubez temporary hair loss is common with massive doses of antibiotics. I told him that today (with an emphasis on the temporary part) and told him to ask the infectious disease doc - as she is the one prescribing the antibiotics - about it if he sees her before I do. I think it made him feel better.
Oh, and I was there when they let him breathe off-vent with the trach collar deflated, which meant that all of a sudden his own voice was coming out of his own mouth. I cannot even tell you how nice it felt to hear his familiar inflections, his … well, his voice. It was like hearing an old friend on the phone you haven’t talked to in forever, so strange-yet-familiar. Which, now that I think about it, was basically what it was.
Typing that all out made me cry!
YAY!!!
Gettin’ a little teary here m’self… 
Not me … no, it is just dusty in here…
Glad to hear the newest news!
Awwwww sniffle So glad to hear this!!! Go Schmoopie, Go!!!
:):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):)
What a lovely treat, to hear his voice! How long has it been? I am so happy to hear each little detail of his upward swing. Do keep posting. Nobody here is even a bit tired of it and we will only expect this thread to end the day he goes back to work!
Reading it made me cry. So we’re even. 
This.
-D/a
Wow. No tears, but I have goosebumps running up and down my arms. How long had it been? Two months?