Infection

This week we have been watching Daphne’s white blood count closely.  Cultures were taken from all her lines and she was given more antibiotics, but the WBC continued to rise.  On Tuesday the WBC was as high as 74.  They decided to take her into surgery for a “wash-out”.  They also planned on doing a liver biopsy and removing a blood clot she had on the outside of her liver. 

All week I felt like I had been pestering the doctors about when they were planning on closing Daphne’s incision.  The response I kept getting was that they were not even thinking about it.  Everyone was very concerned over Daphne’s tendency to clot.  Putting to much pressure on the liver would make clotting more likely.  I think they called it “compartment syndrome”.  They did not think her swelling had gone down enough to close her up safely. 

We had a pleasant surprise when she came back from surgery.  They had closed her incision!  After removing the blood clot, everything just fit into place better and they decided she was ready to be closed.  This will greatly reduce the risk of infections. 

Her WBC has continued to go down since the surgery.  It’s still higher than we’d like, but its heading in the right direction.  Another big step this week was taking Daphne off of dialysis.  Her kidneys are working! 

Our next step we are anticipating is starting feeds!  It’s hard to imagine that she hasn’t eaten in almost 3 weeks.  They will be NG tube feeds, probably 1 or 2 mL/hour of expressed breast milk.  Hopefully her system will be ready for this. 

We have also been hoping to wean her off the ventilator by Monday, but now I’m not so sure that will happen.  On an x-ray part of her right lung looks collapsed.  She also has a bit of a fever, so they have mentioned pneumonia.  Today they had to increase her breathing support.  That is a bit of a bummer, but overall she has been making progress.  Getting off the ventilator is just a bit delayed, but it will happen soon too I’m sure. 

As for Rowan she is feeling much better.  Here she is getting ready for playschool.

She has even come to visit Daphne again.

We took Rowan to the Leg grounds to see the Christmas lights one evening.

She also had a great time decorating the tree this week.