Back at Square One...

It was not a good night for Alli.  When Jason went back to the hospital after dinner she had a new nurse and a new respiratory therapist.  Neither of them has worked with Alli since she was admitted back in February.  Under ordinary circumstances we struggle with this because they not only have to develop chemistry with us, but they have to develop chemistry with Alli and get caught up on her extraordinarily complicated situation.  In the midst of that, she was continuing to have oxygen desaturations that were seemingly unexplained.  She also had an increase in her heart rate.  Before Jason left they had her back on the bipap mask.  Around 1:30 in the morning they called to let us know that they needed to increase the settings.  In the meantime, they drew more labs, got a chest x-ray (I'm surprised she isn't glowing in the dark by now), and performed an echo to make sure they didn't miss anything on the one performed earlier in the week.  They also let Jason know that if the situation didn't improve, they would likely have to reintubate her.  At 5:30 this morning, they called to say that they had intubated her.  She wasn't responding to the increased bipap settings.  Since then she has started to run a high fever.  Their current operating hypothesis is that she has an infection.  They have already sent off blood cultures.  They are going to get a urine culture.  They also sent off a respiratory panel to rule out a potential respiratory virus.  There is the potential for infection from her PICC line (which has been in for over a month).    They are currently treating her with a broad spectrum antibiotic.  Once they know the origin of the infection then they will be able to tailor the antibiotic to the specific bacteria (assuming this is bacterial in nature).  It will take at least a day for the cultures to grow.  So, we'll just have to be patient in the meantime.  We will keep you posted as we know more information.  Please say some extra prayers for her today.  She has really been through a lot (that might be the understatement of the century).  We know she can fight this - as she has proven so many times before that she can get through these setbacks - but we are understandably concerned about the toll this is taking on her.

More to come...