Back to the Drawing Board

The doctors were scratching their heads today during rounds.  Annie's blood work from today showed that her WBC increased to over 40,000 yet her CRP decreased by half, to 13.6!

Annie was on her regular overnight feeding last night but began struggling with it in the night.  She was coughing and gagging and spit up some mucous, so we paused her feeds for a couple hours to give her tummy a break.  She started her regular feed this morning, but again, we had to take a break from it since she started coughing and gagging.

They collected another stool sample in the night to test the third time for c-diff as well as a calprotectin level which measures inflammation in the colon.  I don't know why we didn't think of asking for that earlier.  I highly suspect it will be elevated, yet so far nothing with Annie is making any sense.  We'll get that calprotectin result probably tomorrow.  I sure wish all these tests didn't take so long to run!

We did get test results back from an earlier stool sample testing for various parasites and viruses and so far all of those are negative.

Annie continued on Motrin overnight to keep the fevers down, but so far this morning her temp is up to 101 even with the Motrin.  With her fevers back up and a high WBC, it feels like we are moving in the wrong direction.

The goal today is to get the GI team more involved.  Our GI clinic isn't located at Children's so it's been incredibly difficult to communicate with them and get them to come check in on her.  But supposedly they should be here later today to help give some guidance.

The infectious disease team was in again this morning to see us too.  They are suggesting that we stop her IV flagyl and start oral vancomycin and continue her IV zosyn.  We are a little surprised by that because so far all her c-diff results have been negative, but it sounds like they want to do the oral vancomycin for preventative measures.  We're a little concerned about the flora in her gut.  They have to get approval from the hospitalist, who earlier today said she didn't want to change any of the drugs until they better know what they are treating.  That's another challenge we have--there are so many different doctors trying to figure this thing out and many times their opinions of what to do differ.  But hopefully the GI will be by today and we'll be able to start heading in the right direction.

On a more positive note, Annie got a real bed bath yesterday with actual soap/shampoo and water (instead of just wet wipes and dry shampoo).  She looked like a new kid and I think it helped her feel better too.  There's a little boy here on our floor whose parents have hung a portrait of him on the door to his room.  I thought that's a great idea considering how many nurses comment on how cute Annie's hair is--I'm always telling them that they should see how cute she is when she's NOT a hospital patient!