Day +6

Mina Brigitta had another very good day today. She woke up throwing up again, but then received Benadryl in preparation for a platelet transfusion. That put her to sleep, and she was in a very good mood when she woke up. Grandma and Grandpa had her running back and forth across the floor of the hospital room, and playing all kinds of other games. She was so tired, she crawled up on me as soon as I got here and was asleep by 8:00. She didn't draw any waah babies today, but the again Momma was gone most of the day and she's only done that with Momma or Dadda. Still no interest in food, but we can't complain too much as long as she's energetic.

Maybe we just getting jittery, but there's been a couple of minor worries over the last couple of days. She had a temperature of 38 at some point this afternoon, which is kind of the magic line for when they want to begin more aggressive treatment. She's already on two antibiotics, tobramycin and cefepime, so that would probably consist of another antibiotic such as vancomycin and/or an anti-fungal drug. However, she hasn't had a fever since, so we're thinking the high temperature was just due to all the exertion.

The other item is that she appears to be retaining more fluids than normal. They had to give her a diuretic this morning. This might be related to the slightly low level of albumin (http://www.transweb.org/qa/qa_txp/faq_albumin.html), which was reported in her blood test today. They're carefully watching her fluid intake and outflow, and will manage it to ensure that fluid doesn't begin to build up in her lungs. The worry is that this could be an early indication of some type of liver or kidney problems, such as veno-occlusive disease, which are possible side effects from the BMT preparative regimen. It's far too early to tell, and the good news is that the symptoms she's shown so far are not at all uncommon.