It's Her Back...

Annie went for her spinal sonogram this afternoon, and I knew just from watching the scans that something was wrong.  The tech scanned the full length of her back, the full length of her incision from her spinal fusion.  Half way down her back the look of the tissues changed and a black pocket of fluid appeared.  I saw that the tech measured it at 20 cm long and I knew that we had found a problem.

Of course the tech can't say anything to me, but I still asked, only to have her tell me that she couldn't say anything.  I know from experience that if we ask the techs if something looks normal, they will tell us yes, that's how it's supposed to look.  But if there's anything abnormal, then they say they can't tell us.

We got back up to our room and anxiously waited for the radiology report for more information.  But when the doctor came in to give me the report, there was no new information than what I had already seen myself.  She has a pocket of fluid measuring 20 x 2 x 4cm (about 8 inches long) running adjacent to the rods in her back.  They can't tell from the sonogram if it is in contact with the rods or not and they have no idea what the fluid consists of. 

Things are still getting coordinated, but as we understand, the orthopedist will draw a sampling of the fluid probably tomorrow or Sunday to find out what is in there and if it's the source of infection causing all her high fevers, which it most likely is.  I wish they could just do it now so we could have more answers, but Annie needs to be NPO for the procedure.  In the meantime, it sounds like they'll be switching her IV antibiotics--stopping the flagyl, but keeping the zosyn, and adding IV vancomycin which would be better in treating a staph infection or other infection in her back.

I'm kicking myself for not pushing to get her back looked at more thoroughly sooner.  That first morning last week when she started having such high fevers--over 104--my first thought was that there was a problem with her back.  We debated whether to see her orthopedist or her pediatrician and we went to the pediatrician and got the UTI diagnosis when we should have gone to the orthopedist.  I knew a UTI couldn't cause such high fevers.  But at least now we are pointed in the right direction and can start figuring out how to treat this.

While we were in radiology, the GI came to visit us and make a plan since Annie's UGI was negative for inflammation.  She decided that she better look at more of the GI tract, so she has Annie scheduled for a colonoscopy and endoscopy on Monday morning.  But now that we know about her back, those scopes might get cancelled depending on what we learn about her back over the weekend.  Annie is still having abnormal BMs, so they might still go ahead and do those scopes.  We just have to wait and see.

We appreciate all your thoughts and prayers for Annie.  Please continue to pray for her.  If this pocket of fluid has bacteria and infection in it that has spread to her spine and rods, it is going to be a very difficult thing to treat.