Annie Keeps Things Interesting...

Since my last post, Annie hasn't had much change at all.  The rest of Monday was rather calm--just a lot of vomiting.  Yesterday Annie continued to vomit pretty regularly, but they continued to run her feedings at 20cc/hr anyway, with just some small breaks after each retching session.  Yesterday they finally gave us the green light for getting the PICC line scheduled.  Because Annie is a respiratory risk with her apnea and aspiration, she'll have to go to the OR and receive general anesthesia in order for them to place the PICC line.  A PICC line is just a heavy duty IV that will go in her arm and have a catheter run through a vein up her arm and end just above her heart.  This way they can deliver more concentrated TPN, give meds, and draw blood, without doing more pokes.  She's had about 5 different IVs in the last 10 days so the PICC will prevent needing more IVs. 

We actually had a pretty good night last night because at around 2:30am, the nurses noticed that Annie's IV had gone bad and they had to remove it.  They tried for about an hour to find somewhere else to put a new IV without success.  So from 2:30am on, Annie was not connected to any kind of pump (IV or feeding) which meant our room was much darker and quieter without alarms going off.  I think we both slept well!  So Annie's PICC line is scheduled for noon today, but they just took her vitals and her temp is back up to 101.2.  (She has to be fever free for 48 hours before they can do a PICC.)  So now we're waiting to find out if we can really get the PICC today or not.  This little girl likes to keep things interesting!  But she's up in her chair now, playing with beads, happy and giggling.  You'd never know anything was wrong with her by just looking at her this morning.  But with no IV in and no g-tube feedings, they've got to come up with a plan soon.  So we're just waiting.

We did get the stool results back early this morning.  Annie is still positive for the toxins released from the c-diff.  So now we just need to wait for the infectious diseases doctor to come in and tell us what the plan is.  They might continue to keep her on the same vancomycin and flagyl that she's been getting the last 10 days, or they might change to some different drugs.  But either way, the whole team agrees that Annie needs to have bowel rest so we won't be feeding her anything at all until further notice--some say until the diarrhea stops.  Thus the need for the PICC line... thus the frustration that she has a temp this morning.  Hopefully I can give a happy update later today.