Post Christmas fever

I guess we can't really call it a Christmas gift can we? Maddy got re-admitted to TGH yesterday afternoon because she was running a fever. Let me backtrack a little since I didn't post anything after she got out last week. Things were ok after discharge. Her insurance wouldn't cover the Zyvox, which is the antibiotic the docs wanted her on. Instead they gave her doxycycline which was the back up choice. The first few days out were ok. Then on the 23rd and 24th she started getting nauseous all the time. She thought it was the doxycycline so she just kept taking the medication the doc gave her for nausea and soldered on. We had an ok little Christmas Eve lunch with Ethan at the house then he gave Maddy a ride to Melissa's. She told me later that over the next few days she weaned herself off the pain medication because she thought maybe that was what was making her sick and it had stopped working for her anyway. She also started getting a little bit of runny sinuses and goopy eyes. Guess she may have come down with something new. Because by Friday night she had a fever. She took Tylenol to see if that would help. Saturday morning it was still there so she called the doctors. They direct admitted her again and got to work.

Yesterday they did a repeat CT scan and another chest X-ray this morning. The doctor also started her on a course of anti-fungal breathing treatments just in case. The cultures last week didn't show any fungus but because the pneumonia doesn't seem to be responding to the antibiotics as quickly as we would like to see he wants to cover all the bases.

The doc came in a minute ago and said the CT scan shows improvement. He is going to work on getting the insurance to cover the Zyvox and maybe she will be able to go home on that next week. In the mean time her fever has broken and her sinuses seem to be clearing up. Yesterday we were a little freaked out that the pneumonia was going to really cause a lot more problems. I think the fever was a secondary infection. We are still waiting for the cultures and virus panel to come back but she seems a little better today already. I think the big deal now will be pain management. She is stil in a lot of pain and can only have the pain meds every 8 hours. Yesterday she was really bad for the last two hours of that window. This morning she was able to go an extra hour before having to ask for pain meds. Probably because she has been "sleeping" and not as active. Like how I put sleeping in quotes? Because there is no real sleep in the hospital!!!

Anyway that's the update. I'm hoping she gets out next week before New Year so we don't have to spend another New Year's Eve in this place. On the bright side if we do, we have a good spot to watch the fireworks from.

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Going home

Did I mention she has pneumonia? Yeah, caused by a staff infection. The doc says probably a month before she really feels back to normal. What ever normal is! She thought she was going home yesterday but then she got sick after breakfast so they kept her an extra day to keep an eye on her. The test for C-diff came back negative so at least it's not that. She feels much better today so he's comfortable sending her home.

14 days of strong antibiotics to fight the pneumonia. He is giving her pain meds so she can be active while fighting the pneumonia, which is very important. I have been hanging out since I got off work last night and Maddy has looked and sounded much better in that time. We even walked down to Starbucks for midnight coco! It was a very nice evening.

One last thing, he wants her back in one month for another CT scan. If any of the infection persists he will have to do a bronch to see what's going on. Hopefully it will be all cleared up by then.

Looks like he doc forgot to bring his RX pad so we will be stuck here until he can get back with her pain script this afternoon. Oh well, at least the end is in sight! Thanks again for all the prayers. Merry Christmas!!

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Pneumonia and high blood sugar

Here is the latest on Maddy. I will post a few quotes from her FB page.

Here is what Maddy had to say yesterday...

 

Update. He put me on tramadol and norco so I guess the X-ray came back clear idk for sure. The pain meds have made me feel 100x better. I think he understands unlike everyone else that my lungs are getting worse because I can't get rid of any of the rsv lung lining or anything else because I'm in to much pain to move, cough, or take a full breath. Finally someone gets it. Hopefully the rest of the tests come back clear and he just sends me home on steroids and some pain management so I can clear all this junk out and be active and eat normally again.

Here is what was up today...

the dr came in and said he was sorry none of the other drs have done anything about my pain for a month. That he can tell how much better I feel and that we need to get to the bottom of why the pain is here in the first place. That the X-ray showed pneumonia in my right lung again so they are doing a CT to see how much infection there is and to make sure there's no infection around my lung that could be pushing on it causing me more pain. Then obviously he will see what to do from there as far as keeping me here and antibiotics and everything. He even offered stronger pain meds I said I'm ok for now but at night I might need them since I woke up at 2am in pain and wasn't due for more meds until 4:30. He said just have the nurse page him and he will get me stronger ones if I need him. I love dr floreth he is the only one who listens.

The CT scan didn't happen today because they are so backed up. Hopefully they will be able to get her scan done tomorrow. The only other thing going on is high blood sugar from the steroids. Anytime Maddy is on high dose steroids she gets drug induced diabetes. She has needed insulin both yesterday and today. Today she had a big spike in her blood sugar and it took them forever to get her dosage information to her. Poor girl. The doctor said he will be weaning her back off the steroids as quickly as possible so it shouldn't last long.

That's about it. Hopefully we will have a solid plan of action after this CT scan comes back. We hope they get her better and out in time for Christmas!

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The plan so far...

Not much rest to be had in the hospital as usual. Finally got to settle in around 3AM. She is trying to get some sleep this morning and they are trying not to bug her too much. The doctor came in a little after 9 this morning and said they should have most of the tests back by tomorrow. The chest X-ray they got last night was a bit hard to read because her synthetic hair was in the picture obscuring the top of her lungs. He said the bottom looked clear so just make sure they move her hair out of the way when they repeat it today. Hopefully there will be no signs of pneumonia. They took cultures to check for viral infections last night and because she is having chest pain they just did an EKG to make sure her heart is ok.

One of Maddy's main complaints is that she is in constant pain, in and around her chest. Her lungs feel like they are on fire, especially when she takes a deep breath. They can't give her any good pain meds until they rule out pneumonia and heart problems so she is in a waiting game for pain relief. Dr. Floreth saw her this morning and said as soon as he knows she doesn't have pneumonia he will write her some orders for better pain management. Which is a relief to Maddy because she was getting really frustrated as you can imagine.

I have to work today so I'm heading to the station in a little bit. I'll try to update again tonight if we have any more news to share.

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Welcome back to TGH!

It's barely been a month since Maddy got out of the hospital and we are back again! She really hasn't felt very well since getting out but that is pretty much her life now so she has been making due. Friday she was very tired and slept all day. I made her get up and eat when I got home from work she told me she was just really tired and wanted to sleep she had a bowl of soup and went back to bed. Saturday was much the same. It seemed to me that her cough got a little worse. We monitored her condition and sumptomes and there was nothing really pointing to her actually being "sick" again. She did have a low grade temp, never over 100, so we called the doctors in the afternoon just to do our due diligence. They said the virus she had last month can really beat her up for a few months and to keep an eye on her. If she got worse or her fever spiked over 100 to give them a call. By Sunday afternoon she seemed on the upswing. The transplant coordinator called around 3 to check up on her and she was doing fine. Today she rested much of the day but started wheezing in the afternoon. Then she took a turn for the worse around 9. The wheezing got worse and she started having coughing fits that were hard to recover from. By the time she was ready for bed at 10 she started shivering so she checked her temp and it was at 101.5. We called the doc and they decided to admit her directly into the hospital. We were expecting a long wait in the ER but they had a room available so that was a good bit of news.

So here we are. They got a chest X-ray right away and have ordered IV fluids and antibiotics for right now. It's about 12:30 and we are still getting settled into the room. They should have the IV in her soon and get those fluids and antibiotics flowing. I'm hoping that helps pretty quick. As we were waiting for the nurse to come in a respiratory tech rolled one of those hepa filters they use when she gets ribavirin. Maddy said "if they try to bring that thing in here I'm going to make a gun out of something in his room and shoot someone!" Ha ha! They haven't even tested her for RSV yet so I'm pretty sure aren't going to just start giving her that crap for no reason. The nurse said no, it's for another patient. I'll update sometime tomorrow when we know more.

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