Sunday Update

It's now Sunday. Unfortunately, she was moved from the PICU to the floor (trach pod) yesterday afternoon. While it is more "comfortable" in that we can eat, talk on our phones and get visitors in here, we also get less help, too.

She is doing great. And she is so ready to go home. Yesterday she signed "go home, shoes and get dressed." And she kept pointing to her monitor wires and signing "off." It kills me to tell her we can't go home yet. Especially when she FEELS fine.

All we're waiting on now is culture results. The infectious disease (ID) doc came by just a few minutes ago. He said that she has a "bunch" of organisms/bacteria from the bone infection. To spare you from the lesson in microbiology I received (another area of medicine I'd rather not know about ) when more organisms grow, it takes longer to find out exactly which antibiotic will work.

The good news is that it is not likely to be MRSA. So, that's great. The bad news is that one of them is Pseudomonas, which can be pretty resistant to meds, too. It's pretty common for pseudomonas to live on/around the trach. It really likes damp areas, and getting humidified air during the night makes a trached person more susceptible. The thinking is that it was on or around her trach, which was super close to her incision. And the germ could have gotten on her trach collar, which then rubbed on her incisions. At any rate, it looks like it got into her bone, which makes the germ worse than if it were just isolated to the trach. Once it goes internal, it becomes more serious and harder to kill.

I asked him if this changes the length of time she'll need to receive the IV meds, and he said no. Which I was relieved to hear. Although I know things can change, so I'm not counting on anything, really. But, it does increase the number of meds she'll have to take. I think it will probably end up being two different IV meds plus some meds through her g-tube.

Hopefully we will have the final results sometime in the earlier part of the day tomorrow. Then she will need to get one dose of the appropriate antibiotic, wait a little while to make sure she has no adverse reactions, and then we can leave. So, hopefully we'll be home tomorrow night. Although, if they still can't determine what's going on until too late Monday, it will be Tuesday.

Well, I'm feeling very tired all of a sudden, so I'm going to go. I want to upload some photos, but I'll have to do that later.

Thanks,
Christy