A New Year....Another Hospital Admission

So over the past week Elizabeth has been running random low grade fevers a night time. We attributed it to her molars coming in but notified our transplant team in Texas, just in case. They told us to keep an eye on her and if anything changed then we would go from there. Wednesday night I went to work, and Matt was home with Elizabeth. He called me and said she had a fever of 101.6, her heart rate was high, her oxygen levels were low, and she was very upset and crying. We took her to the emergency room thinking she just getting a cold or something, since Matt and I have both been sick this past week. They did lots of labs and did cultures from her broviac (the line that is in her chest we use to draw blood/give IV meds through). Since her temperature went down and her oxygen levels were staying normal we were sent home after spending 7 hours in the emergency room Wed morning. We made it home for about 5 hours when they called telling us to get her back to the ER immediately, that she has an infection in her blood. Her blood cultures had come back growing bacteria and she needed to be started on antibiotics very quickly to try and get it under control.

  So she was admitted to Erlanger Hospital here at home, yesterday. So needless to say our trip to Houston on Sunday for her 9 month evaluation has been cancelled until we can get whatever this is treated. As of now the Drs have started her on a board range antibiotic until the cultures grow more to determine the specific bacteria/germ growing and then they can narrow down the treatment for it. We should get that information sometime tomorrow. Another option being discussed is if the broviac line needs to come out. At this point Matt and I are in agreement that we want it removed, just to prevent this type of thing. The downside of not having it, is that she will have to get stuck for blood draws/IVs instead of the easy access the line has given us. She was pretty pitiful yesterday and wanted to be held all day. Today she seems a little bit better and has played with a few toys. We are hopeful that the antibiotics she is getting now, are making a difference.

Needless to say we are pretty scared, this type of infection is very serious and thankfully it looks like hers was caught early. I'm grateful that we brought her to the ER when we did. It does suck to be in the hospital again. But I keep reminding myself that we had a few good months at home and made it through the holidays and her birthday. Plus, even though shes in the hospital now, its a lot better being in a hospital at home VS being in Nashville or Houston.  We knew going into transplant, life after would not be easy and there would be hospital admissions, and issues to deal with. This is just another dip on the "roller coaster".