Staying Put

The doctor and nurse practitioner just came and talked to me.
It could be one of three things, or possibly a combination of them. I’ll start with the worst case scenario and end with the simple explanation.

Possibily #1: She is developing sepsis. This is a highly dangerous infection in the blood stream. She may not be strong enough to fight it. This has been one of my greatest fears for the last couple of weeks.

Last night the main lumen on her broviac broke. They were able to replace it immediately, but are worried that it could have introduced something into the line. So far we have nothing confirming this. All of her blood cultures are still coming back negative. But, she has had a fever for two days straight and her heart rate has been as high as 215 (it stayed there for a couple of hours). This poses another problem. Now that she has single ventricle anatomy (left ventricle function only), having her heart rate that high for a long period of time is going to wear her out. She’s still VERY fragile, and might not be strong enough to continue at this rate.

They started her on an IV antibiotic tonight just in case. They would rather prevent something than let it get out of hand.

Possibility #2: She is having withdrawl symptoms from the weaning of her pain/sedation medications. This could cause a fever, her super poopy diapers, and her elevated heart rate. We tried giving her extra morphine yesterday, but it didn’t really seem to help her for longer than half an hour, and it didn’t really bring down her heart rate. They just gave her morphine tonight and so far her heart rate has dropped from 205 to 178. Still high, but at least it’s a little bit better. Part of the increased heart rate is the fever, so hopefully if the fever goes away, her heart rate should get back to her baseline (in the 150’s).

Possibility #3: She’s dried out from too much diuretics. They gave her some extra fluids earlier today and skipped her afternoon Bumex. They also got rid of her Diruel yesterday. They aren’t sure if this is contributing to the fever, but it could be contributing to the heart rate.

Good news is that she’s not as irritable as she was yesterday and earlier this morning. Bad news is that going home has been put on hold indefinately.

Once again, we are doing things in Elaina time. Turtle steps.....

(I think she’s just a diva and wants all the attention from the sweet nurses and doctors!)