Day +12: slow improvement
Mina Brigitta seems to be slowly recovering from whatever it is that's been bugging her. She hasn't thrown up or had a fever since Monday. Her rash is still there, but seems to be slowly getting better. The nurse said it can take several doses of the prednisone before the rash will totally go away. Her heart rate has been in the 120s after getting up as high as 190 during her fevers, so they finally took her off the continuous heart monitor. Between the three heart leads, the oxygen saturation sensor on her toe, and the six tubes leading into her Broviac, she was constantly all tangled up. No interest in eating or drinking anything except a little water, but that's no surprise with all the fluids she's getting and the IV nutrition.
We did learn that she tested positive for a C. diff. infection. C. diff. is a type of bacteria that lives in the gut, and is normally held in check by other bacteria. The other bacteria tend to get wiped out by antibiotics, which is why C. diff. is very common after long courses of antibiotic treatment. They're giving her an antibiotic called Flagyl for the C. diff. The only wrinkle is that the infection could get transmitted to Isaac, so we have to be really careful about not letting the kids touch and washing our hands when switching from one kid to another. They also suggested that we wear a paper gown when handling Isaac in case the bacteria is on our clothes.
Mina Brigitta's white counts were up a little bit again today, from 300 million/liter to 400 million. This again is hopefully a sign that the donor cells are engrafting. She received a platelet transfusion yesterday, and will probably need another tomorrow or Friday. Her red counts have been slowly dropping as well, so she'll probably need a blood transfusion over the weekend, which would be the first one since the transplant. She got a nice long boost from all the red blood the donor sent.
Last night she was feeling well enough to want to sleep in the chair with me again. She was tired in the morning and napped for an hour or so after getting Benedryl, but she was fairly energetic and played all afternoon. She must have worn herself out, because she fell asleep shortly before I arrived around 8 PM. Unfortunately, she woke up when we had to change her diaper, and couldn't get back to sleep until 9:30.
We did learn that she tested positive for a C. diff. infection. C. diff. is a type of bacteria that lives in the gut, and is normally held in check by other bacteria. The other bacteria tend to get wiped out by antibiotics, which is why C. diff. is very common after long courses of antibiotic treatment. They're giving her an antibiotic called Flagyl for the C. diff. The only wrinkle is that the infection could get transmitted to Isaac, so we have to be really careful about not letting the kids touch and washing our hands when switching from one kid to another. They also suggested that we wear a paper gown when handling Isaac in case the bacteria is on our clothes.
Mina Brigitta's white counts were up a little bit again today, from 300 million/liter to 400 million. This again is hopefully a sign that the donor cells are engrafting. She received a platelet transfusion yesterday, and will probably need another tomorrow or Friday. Her red counts have been slowly dropping as well, so she'll probably need a blood transfusion over the weekend, which would be the first one since the transplant. She got a nice long boost from all the red blood the donor sent.
Last night she was feeling well enough to want to sleep in the chair with me again. She was tired in the morning and napped for an hour or so after getting Benedryl, but she was fairly energetic and played all afternoon. She must have worn herself out, because she fell asleep shortly before I arrived around 8 PM. Unfortunately, she woke up when we had to change her diaper, and couldn't get back to sleep until 9:30.
posted by Arne Olson @ 10:37 PM
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