The Basic Update

Just wanted to share some recent info, and am running out the door again to the hospital:

My infection seems to be cleared and the only thing I have to endure now is the twice daily horrific dressing change. It doesn't bother me, it's just horrific because it consumes so much time each day and never seems to be coordinated well by the home nurses and hospital staff.

Tessa's staph infection is indeed systemic, which is not good, but they did get a negative result on the daily culture this morning, which is hopeful. Their protocol is to get TWO negative cultures before assuming it could be clearing up, so tomorrow we should see if the antibiotics and yesterday's procedure have had a positive effect.

About the procedure... just after yesterday's post, I returned to the NICU from my lunch break to find that in my 90 minute absence they had become concerned about her Oxygen levels and done an abdominal Xray, where they found a huge pocket of air placing pressure on her lungs and other organs. Within the hour they performed a brief surgery at her bedside to place a small drain in her abdomen. They got a lot of murky fluid and air bubbles immediately from the drain, which will remain in her for about a week. They anticipated her infection possibly seeming worse initially overnight and then improving afterwards. This morning, she does have some improved look to her oozy skin and her numbers are all back to her baseline (which is not entirely stable, but is the norm for Tessa). But she did bottom out on her heart rate and Oxygen saturation about an hour ago for no apparent reason. They had to take her off of her respirator and "bag her" and perform compressions. This all happened within about 2-3 minutes. She is resolved for the time being, and everything is back to her baseline again. But because they have no idea what caused this (they did another XRay after the incident and her tube and lungs look good), they are concerned and watchful. It could be her constant blood pressure instability or her infection that contributed to this, but they just don't know.

More later...